HIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

^1' ■ " 



J7/^e^ I4-. 



i UNITED STATES OK AMERICA, f 






1^ 



IDEALS MADE REAL 



A ROMANCE 



GEORGE L. RAYMOND 



^7 




NEW YORK 

PUBLISHED BY KURD AND HOUGHTON 

BOSTON: H. 0. HOUGHTON & COMPANY 

CamBiitrgc: K\^t iUber^itfc \Bvt^i 

1877 



•14- 



Copyright, 1877, 
By GEORGE L. RAYMO>'D. 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. 0. UOUGUTON AND COMPANY. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 
IDEALS MADE REAL 5 

HAYDN 77 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



It seemed a rare and royal friendsliip, ours, 

The very sovereignty of sympathy ; 

Begun so early too, mere Lxds you know ; 

And now I never look back there again 

But, swept like shading from a hero's face 

In pictures, — those of Rembrandt, — all the school 

Appear in hues of dim uncertainty 

in relief. 

Nor strange was it ; too tender were my moods ; 

Nor oft had felt a touch save that of age 

My traits all moulding to its own conceits. 

For this, from contact kept with boys at play, 

Till sensitive and shrinking as a girl, 

A hint of sympathy could master me. 

Not once, while waiting for Jier wedding day, 

Could maiden's heart more hopeful beat than mine 

To school-life looking forward. Reaching it, 

Not often could a bride a Blue-beard find 

To so disturb the trust of her romance. 

At first, they lodged me there with such a loon ! 
" Our clown," so said the boys ; and clown he 

was ; 
Would tease all day, and tumble round all night; 



6 IDEALS MADE HEAL. 

And every morning, sure as came tlie sun, 
Would start and rout me out, a huge wet towel 
Snap like a coach whip round my dancing shape, 
Well put to blush until I dodged away. 

A chum had Elbert too, much like my own, 

A wild boy caged, to seem more wild betimes 

Through beating at his bars, a hapless wretch. 

And when our happier love had flowered in us. 

Half pitying each other, half this chum, 

And more to pity, we stood round, well pleased, 

To note his own wild set inflating him 

With largest fancy for a freer fate ; 

For, by as much the better bubble he, 

By so much might the lesser breeze have power 

To blow him from us ! Then, at last, our chance : 

A gust of scolding struck him, and he went. 

In other Avords, some mission mouthed for him, — 

An inn-clerk's so I think, — he bowed content 

Like Paul to fldl, let down, one gloomy night. 

From out the window of his room ; Avhile we. 

Much gi'iolino;, flun(>- his luggage after him. 

My friend, thus widowed, caused that our school's 
head 

Already nodding o'er his noonday pipe. 

Should beck his severed dreams with one nod 
more. 

And so consent to ours. 

Thus room-mates made, 

We slammed his door and woke him ; not our- 
selves. 

Our dreamland lasted, that is with ourselves. 

With others — well, you know boy-friends are shy. 



IDEALS MADE KEAL. « 

A trait is it, this shielding of their hearts. 
That fits for life-tilts ? — Ifwas comical, 
With others near, our blustering, each to each. 
In truth, each seemed to wear his nature's coat 
The soft side inward, comforting himself. 
The coarse alone turned outward toward the 

world. 
If strangers chafed against it, self did not, 
Nor once its friend. 

His cloak of caution loosed, 
No mortal had convinced me in those days 
That Elbert's peer had lived. What seemed in him 
So mild, so beautiful, was more than marks 
Mere difference between a porcupine 
Provoked and peaceable. The kind was new ; 
Not human, so angelic. Ay, his soul, 
As pure as loving, and as fine as frank, 
I half believe to-day, as I did then, 
Stood strange amid his comrades of the play 
As dogwood, wedded to the skies of spring, 
White in a wilderness of wintry pines. 
Ah me, could all find all on earth so dear, 
Christ's work were common. I had died for him. 
In fact, that very fate to save the rogue 
I just escaped, a score of times or more, 
Bluflft, bruised, or battling for him on the green. 

Our love continued, long as school-days there. 
And longer afterwards its smouldering fires 
Were fed by letters, and rekindled oft 
By friction of a frequent intercourse 
Through visits in vacations ; these gone by, 
There still remained behind a lingering light 
Pervading moods of memory like the rays 



O IDEALS MADE REAL. 

Poured through a prism, -with all the commonest 

hues 
Sprayed to uncommon colors where they broke. 
In truth, I never see to-day a face 
Where flash the kindling feelings of a boy, 
But back of it, I seem to feel the warmth 
Of Elbert's heart. No school-child past me 

bounds 
But his dear presence seems to leap the years. 
And rush on recollection, with a force 
To start from depths of joy, stilled long ago, 
A spray as fresh as dashed from them when first 
They streamed in cataracts. With love like this 
To flood its brim, my soul so full appeared 
That, overflowing at each human touch, 
Its pleasures could not stagnate. 

But, you know. 
The prey of changing skies men are ; in drought 
The old springs fail ; and long we lived apart. 

Then Elbert, when we met, talked much of this : 
How, all its chairs made vacant one by one, 
Applause rose thinner at his bachelor-club ; 
How, brief as birds', are human raating-times ; 
How men, mere songs forgot, withdraw to nests — 
To homes — their worlds, where all the sky is 

filled 
With woman's sunny smiles and shadowy locks. 
How sweet were life thus shaded ! Ah, how rich. 
With earlier ardor of the season sped, 
Should ripen i-ound its prime love's ruddy fruit, 
And vie with autumn frost the vines to flush ! 

" We, Norman," said he, " were contented once ; 
We two, we only ; but we men must part ; 



IDEALS MADE REAL. » 

And I confess now, in this general glow, 
I feel as chill, and lone, and out of place, 
As one last dew-drop, prisoned in a shade 
Of universal noon." 

" The sun," said I, 
" Will free it, by and by. Our time will come." 

" Must come," replied he ; " or I go to it. 
Henceforth, wherever beauty beams for me. 
Not I shall shun it, as has been my wont ; 
But hold my eyes, a sun-glass for the rays ; 
And let them burn me." 

'• May they burn," I cried, 
*' Until love's fragrant opiate fume so strong 
It make your brain beclouded as a Turk's. 
For me, alas, though wild o'er many a maid, 
I ne'er was mad enough to marry her." 

" You poets," laughed he, " soar above so fixr, 
The common clouds of earth can reach you not. — 
Though love, my man, is not a smouldering fire, 
Except when slight. When strong, the flame is 
clear." 

" So clear must mine be," said T, " that it show 
Some mind to match a man's for sympathy. 
Till then, must memory, jealous of her own, 
Out-bid love's hope that cannot promise more." 

" But maidens are not men, nor loved as men. 
Bind beauty to their souls, then weigh the twain. 
Or else? weigh nothing? — where is judgment 

then ? 
We must be practical." 



10 IDEALS MADK REAL. 

Thus Elbert spoke, 
While I, for whom this unfbreto'kened mien 
Across his soul had swept, a slightest cloud 
Not tokening the storm to rage anon, 
Smiled only, thinking how, where throbbed his 

heart, 
Some maid unnamed must surely stand and knock ; 
Though this I had forgotten, save for that 
Which happened later. You shall hear of it. 

It came in Dresden ; since my new designs. 
Perhaps, a year. It seemed a sudden turn. 
To change my life-work ; but the grief was 

deep. 
With parents and estate so swept away, 
The blows had stunned me, and I could not think. 
Words seemed but mockery ; I could not write. 

Besides — no myth was it ; I felt it all — 

One time, when, lonely, I had knelt to Christ, 

I seemed to rise not lonely ; I was his ; 

He mine. I vowed to live thtn but for Him ; 

To break away from every cord of Earth, 

And make my life accordant with his own. 

Not only would I do the good ; but yield 

Each grain in all my being unto good. 

And sow in wildest wastes, where all should germ 

In generations growing up to heaven. 

But yet, a novice still, though, like Saint Paul, 
To Avill was present with me, to perform 
I found not how ; but, on performance bent. 
Within the chancel chanting Avith the choir, 
I stood before the altar, half the day, 



IDKALS MADE REAL. H 

And half before my books, with cravings pale 
For high church, stole, and sermons of my own. 

Then was it Elbert's friendship furthered me. 
For finding me, and staring at my face. 
And books, and cassock ; when the puzzle passed, 
He, humbling to my humor, praised the priest 
And all the powers of priesthood, till delight 
Relaxed the rigor of my role ; and then 
He wedged the Avisdom of his own desire 
Within my dreams, and broke apart their spell, 
And drew aside the curtains of their couch. 
And spoke of dawn, and light for all the world. 

" First learn about this world," he urged, " and 

then 
Learn how to help it. Surely minds like mine 
Should teach, revise, reform, an impulse start, 
Full counteracting false philosophy. 
Here loomed an aim worth study ! And for this 
Why, now, not cross the sea ? — His purse was 

mine. 
And go you named a stutlent," Elbert said, 
" Nor clad so like a priest, for whom all earth 
Shall don some Sabbath day demean ; go free 
To find the man, hard by his work, at home." 
Thus pleading many days, at last he won ; 
And yielding to his wish, the sea I crossed. 

There, borne to Dresden for a leisure month, 
With whom, one morning, should I chance to 

meet 
But Elbert's eldest sister, grown quite staid 
And matronly withal, a second wife, 



12 IDKALS MADE REAL. 

In charge of half a dozen sturdy boys ; 
Though these I saw not then ; but all alone, 
Much flushed and flurried, sweeping up the street, 
She stopped, and cried abruptly, " Why, my 

friend, 
Our Norman, you here ? — what ? — where fi'oni V 

— how long ? — 
Not heard of you for years ! That Elbert, drone, 
Will never write the news. So glad I am — 
The very soul we needed ! Here, move quick ! — 
Two friends have come there, by the morning 

train — 
Their luo-o-age lost — my laggard husband too. — 
The hour, so early ! — Such a mass of men ! 
And did you note the statues in Berlin, 
In all the streets ? — of warriors, every one ! 
And these two girls, here traveling, by them- 
selves. 
Where might makes right, and woman slighted is. 
Not strange that toward you men their feelings 

oft, 
In heat of indignation seething up, 
Should yield some slender scum of bitterness 1 " 

Thus led she, rattling on, my thoughts meanwhile 
Confused as warrior's at the morning drum. 
Till came a sight supreme, full rousing me : — 
Two bright eyes only, sparkling in the light 
Where flushed a face that flared then hid itself 
Behind a traveling hood, some flecked with dust, 
And fringed with venturous locks of (;areless hair. 

" I have them now," it cried, and straight began 
A tale, strained sweetly through those lips aglow 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



13 



As sunset music. Then, when all was told, 
The name I heard was '' Edith." 

Bowing low, 
" Well done," essayed I, " well done as a man." 

" As well," laughed Elbert's sister, " as you 

speak ! " 
Then Edith, echoing after, naively dropt 
" I tell you — nay — I will not say it though." 

" Please, do ? " I ventured. 

" Nay ; it may offend," 
Replied she ; while her slender shoulders 

shrugged — 
Ah me, two doors, so sweet, about a heart 
That love seemed dared to open 1 

" Nay," I said, 
" I vow you such a deal of patience now I " 

"I do not know," she answered; "am not sure. 
Your manly patience might break loose to sigh 
More hints about my manhood ! Just to think, 
Full half of all humanity, micre girls ; 
No force to aid themselves ; no thought, no tact." 

*' I beg," I said ; " not so ; but commonly " — 

" Ah, commonly ; and what is this," she asked, 
" That men-minds do so well? — discriminate? 
Yet even I, dull woman, I can see 
Brains differ in their grain. Alas for man. 
With so much matter in his own brain lodged, 
That mind he weighs like matter, in the mass ; 
And classes character, as one might clay. 



14 IDEALS MADE REAL. 

This forms a man, — all wisdom, firmness, power ; 
And that, a woman, — foolish, fickle, frail ; 
And so — well, well, not wholly safe, forsooth, 
Except subjected, eh? to man, her lord!" 

" Ah but," said I, " we men, we prize you so ! 
To hold you ours, our pride seems infinite. 
So lifted up, your fault alone it is 
If we do seem lords." 

" Seem or are ? " she asked, 
" Or have you lords so long seemed that you 

think 
Your lording over us hath habits trained 
That still need lording over ? Fashion holds 
That men need freedom ; women, forms to bind. 
AVhy this ? Have both not souls ? Aspire not 

both ? 
Must one class only live as slaves to sex ? — 
A woman's soul, I think, as well as man's. 
May show some mastery over its abode." 

"■ But yet," I said, " you know, her frame divine — 
And soul, too — men confuse things — who can tell 
AVhich is the soul? " 

She answered absently, 
" In truth you do confuse things ! only Avise, 
As owls that blink at light, too blind to see 
What day dawns with a wife's enfranchisement ; 
Ambitious, but forgetful that the meek 
Inherit heaven; or that the oppressor dwarfs 
His own surroundings ; that one's pride must stoop, 
Or else his soul ; that earthly lords must bend, 
And lift their consorts to their own prized seats, 
As equals, queens, or else must house with slaves, 
And take on slavish habits of their homes." 



IDEALS MADE HEAL. 15 

« Well said ! " I thought, " well said ! a maid of 

worth. 
Despite her protests, a right manly mood." 
And, as with manhood, so my thought unsheathed 
To wait a chance to test her further still. — 

And just then Elbert's sister, hurrying back 
With Alice, Edith's sister, whom she fetched, 
Cried, halfway introducing us, " My fan ! " 

I stooped, and picked it up. Then, bowing low, 
" Your humble slave," I said. " You know, some 

claim, 
Real friends, of either sex, live always slaves. 
Sheer want of love a master's whip would snatch 
And, snapping it, cry out, ' This way — serve me ! ' " 

" And so," said Edith, reddening at this, 
" I seem all loveless ! You may mourn it less 
That yonder carriage waits me. For to-day, 
All thanks for coming. We may meet once more.** 

What would I not have given to have her know 
I meant no rudeness? Elbert's sister laughed, 
And, walking homeward then, kept bantering me, 
My heart to storm with courage womanly. 
So sure that love of sex sways all us men. 
" So fortunate ! — The very chance for me ! — 
No escort ! — all alone ! — no rivals near I — 
And I must visit them this very eve." 

" Ah, but my plans," I said. — 

" Yes, ^es : your plans ; 
You serve ideals, like all idiots. 



16 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



But you are more, niucli more than out your 

teens ; 
And — well, you are no hermit, any way." 

" Then must I find " — I laughed, yet earnest 

half— 
" The charms to tempt me ! " and my reckoning- 
Filled all my fingers doubly with the traits 
Of perfect womanhood. 

" She owns," she said, 
" All these, and more. For once, my poet, 

dream ; 
And full Elysium waits you when you wake. 
But mind you, Norman, minds like these complete, 
Tn whose one person love so womanly 
With intellect so manly has been wed, 
Need not to marry for a hand or head. 
There, hearts alone can win. Bear this in 

mind ; 
And fan your fancy till your words grow warm, 
Ay, glow to flash the white heat of the soul ! " 
Then, crying from her door, " Farewell till eve," 
True to her sex, unanswered yet assured. 
The woman left. 

And I, well I was caught ; 
The net so deftly drawn, I floundered first ; 
Then, resting, smiled. We fight the hydra, man, 
Who war against our nature. Every head 
That reason clove would rise redoubled there. 
Forsooth, my rudeness, it must be explained : 
Which done, one visit surely would suffice. 
If two, some good religious might result ; 
Much good, sighed zeal, too warm by more than 

half; 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



17 



Then roused sweet echoes of faint hints, recalled 
From sources churchly, of one's need to wed, 
Like me, who else lived lone in lonely walks. 
Thus, like two cowards, clinging each to each, 
Weak wish nudged wisdom, and weak wisdom 

wish. 
AVho gets on better ? 

So that night we went. 
And, all the way, my gay guide railed at me. 
" Aha, my bachelor, your roving love, 
Aha, has had its day ! yon sunset-hues 
But deck the curtains hung before its night." 

" Alas," I cried. " if I must through them pass, 
Woe me who wish it ! See, this side of them. 
The river in the horizon underneath." 

*' Your Jordan, ere your promised land," she said ; 
" You need baptizing for your hardened heart." 

" Ah me ! " I sighed, yet strangely ; for there 

seemed, 
While all the way the twilight thicker sank, 
Sweet silence settling down o'er rival birds 
Until the reverent air lay hushed to heed 
The hallowing influence of holier stars. 
And, all the way, deep folding round my soul. 
With every nerve vibrating at its touch. 
Fell dim delight, through which, as through a 

veil, 
Some nearer presence breathed of holier life. 
Ah, wandering heart, and had I had my day ? 
Its closing gates as golden as yon west ? 
2 



18 IDEALS MADE REAL. 

And whither in the dark ? — who knows ? who 

cares ? 
On, through the twilight threshold, trustingly ! 
What hast thou, night, that weary souls should 

fear ? 
Thou home of love entranced, thou hauiit of 

dreams, 
Thy halls alone can hoard the truth of heaven ! 
Thy dome alone far stretch to meet the stars ! 

She roused me, crying out, " Look there, the 

porch ! " 
I looked, and there beheld our waiting friends. 
About them grouped some ruddy German maids 
With deeper hues but served to finely shade 
The subtiler beauty of these two. Ah me, 
They came from out that western world wherein, 
By fresher breezes and by brighter suns, 
The Saxon substance, sweetened and refined, 
Each year assumes a more ethereal form. 

Then these two, moving from the circling maids, 
Like petals loosened from a rose in bloom. 
Came forth to welcome us ; and, greetings o'er, 
Of Europe, Edith spoke, and Germany, 
And books, and music — " how the church of 

Greece 
Earth's pivot showed that all earth whirls upon 
Within the center of a flagstone round 
That paves its chapel in Jerusalem. 
But she, who tracked that viewless whirl by 

sound, 
And deemed all harmony to center here, 
A Grecian only in her love of art. 
Had found that pivot fixed in Germany." 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



19 



" A Grecian truly ! " Elbert's sister cried ; 

" Each morning brings her fresh from shrines of 

art, 
All flushed, a priestess from an oracle, 
To sanctify us grosser mortals here 
With hints so vague ! such muttered mysteries ! 
Ah me, to hear her rave once ! " 

Edith smiled, 
" And blest the eyes that see now ! which sees 

most, 
Mere worsliip, or mere wonder ? Know you, sii-," — 
She paused and added then, — " this critic's 

ground : — 
The Sistine Babe it was, we spoke of Him : 
Because I find art's glass, when rightly held, 
Revealing through the real the truth ideal, 
I said, ' I seemed to see not only Him, 
The Babe, but back of Him, His heavenly home, 
And this to enter, like a handmaid there. 
And there commune until my soul was blest.' 
I said, ' My spirit thence appeared to come. 
My arms the throne, my breast the couch of Christ. 
If so,' I asked, ' what art had wrought for me ? 
Did any soul transmigrate after death ? 
I knew a power bade mine transmigrate here.' 
For this, you hear of raving. What the harm ? — 
The soul of feeling is in thought, not so ? 
Then one, to feel refreshed, must think she bathes 
In rills that reach her from the freshest springs." 

" You know," said Elbert's sister, soothingly, 
" Our soaring lark here bathes in every pool. 
So be not frightened off; her plumes but shake 
A sprinkling from the bath they felt to-day." 



20 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



*' Some all would please," said Edith ; " I, my- 
self ; 
My soul, I mean ; and would not clip that soul 
To suit mere worldling's notions. Courting 

crowds, 
A soul lives crampt ; but if one speak the truth, 

Crowds leave good riddance ! — space is 

cleared for friends." 

" Cleared verily ! " the other cried ; " Long live 

These pet penates of our modern homes. 

These sprites to fright the stranger! — Own it 

now. 
The fear you felt. It would appease her so ! " 

On Edith's trembling lip, my gaze descried, 
The while no answer came, the slightest wave, 
Coursed there from far off trouble nnderneath. 
" Not understood by these," I thought ; and 

straight — 
You know no man can flinch it : woman's grief. 
If any manhood still be left in him. 
Will rouse his efforts to bespeak her peace. — 
I found myself her soul's expositor 
To clear the channel of its overflow. 

" And when the thought is in one, when it springs. 
Why, then, not let it spring ? Such thronged 

ideas 
Tlie world has not, that it can spare our own. 
And if we startle folks; of their deceit 
Jog off the guise, Ave spy them as they are. 
Between souls thus discovered, deems our friend. 
True love must flow ; while friendship gained by 

craft 



IDEALS MADE RKAL. 21 

Is lost by confidence. I think her right. 
Why not? we all of us, in noblest moods, 
Crave homage for a noble soul within. 
Who knows this soul, save while we speak the 

truth ? 
Did not divine hands form us as we are ? 
Who love us as we are, love higher things 
Than they who love what earth would make of 

us." 

" My champion ! " Edith cried ; and drawing 

near. 
With white sleeves fluttering from her shapely 

sides — 
Ah soul, were she a winged one sent to save 
She scarce had in me stirred a greater joy. 

My mien must have revealed it. Like a lake 
When fogs uplift, to greet my sympathy, 
Anon her spirit's crystal depth appeared. 
And lo, reflected thence from all her moods, 
I seemed to flice, at every turn, my own. 

So new such visions then, as thrilled I felt. 
As feels the savage maid who first descries 
Her own face staring from a stranger's glass, 
Then spell-bound lingers, learning of herself. 
So wrapt, my wonder hung, all wistfully. 
About that spirit bright. What meant it all ? 
I could not then believe, I scout it yet. 
That mortals can afford to slight the souls 
Reflecting theirs, to make them mind them- 
selves 
And prize the good they own, and dread the ill. 



22 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



You smile, friend : ah ; and often so would I. 
My head would oft, made jealous of my heart, 
Deny all reason in my impulses. 
And oft my heart, to bear such weight of joy. 
Would faint fi-om too much feeling. I would ask 
Could I be sane yet feel a life so sweet ? — 
At least I would be sure ; so like a friend 
Who finds a long lost friend amid a crowd. 
And stares, and holds him at arm's length, a 

time, 
Ere clasping him with courage to his breast 
That well-nigh bursts the while, I held her off, 
This Ions: sought soul that mine had found a 

friend ; 
And did not dare to trust her as I would. 

What struggles then were mine ! Too cautious 

there 
To dare in even love to risk a fall. 
Ah, how I braced my powers against a force 
That might unbalance me ! My will resolved. 
How mastered it my too reluctant mien ! 
How stiffened every smile ! Ay, ay, when love, 
Too strong, would conquer, how I thwarted it, — 
Each glance that could reveal one glimpse of it 
First turning toward her sister, not toward her ; 
Unconscious Edith ! — was it all deceit ? — 
I dared not otherwise. How could I else, 
Poor fool, that then 1 felt myself to be. 
Hide my infatuation ! — 

What ofher? — 
How could she know me when I masked myself V 
Did not her sister seem to please me most V 
Did not my Edith please most, pleasing her ? 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



23 



And so for Alice only seemed her care ; 
Woe me, for Alice, fair and flippant naught, 
An empty echo only of my love. 
The sweetness of the family all was spent 
To fill the elder Edith. 

How I felt, 
Kept back from moonlight strolls for Alice there ; 
And jogged from tete-a-tetes to give her place ; 
Then with her left, inspired alone to wish 
To be like her a dunce ; and thus to be 
Like her, in some way, Edith's all-in-all. 

And could I hint this fact to Edith? nay. 
Unselfish, all ethereal in her thought, 
A disembodied soul held moods as few 
Touched through the senses. One as soon, had 

snared 
With tattered nets of tow a wind of spring ; 
Or with his own breath warmed the wintry air. 
Her love's attention, no way, could be drawn. 
At times, I would essay philosophy ; 
Her fancy argue down ; or facts rehearse. 
Like merest sand, flung off a nervous bird. 
My pleas were shaken back. 

She " There," would cry ; 
" Some everlasting every bod)' 's law 
Applied again to me ! Nay, nay, this world 
Would grind one's very soul to common dust ! " 

" And what else are we," once I turned to ask ; 
" Would God we all from laws could free ourselves. 
But half our lives we spend in learning them ; 
The other half in learninc; them to love. 



24 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



And but in souls that learn life's laws by heart, 
Has wisdom, so it seems, a sway complete." 

" Nay, nay ; not earthly wisdom ! nay," she cried, 
" For earth is swayed by folly ; folly's self, 
But wisdom fettered ! You live you its slave. 
But me leave free ! " And while she moved 

away, — 
" You lawless," sighed I, " shall you always 

prove 
The water Undine of my wilderness. 
All maddening, with strange metamorphoses. 
My faint love thirsting to refresh itself ? " — 

Oft while I mooted this, she changed and seemed 
A fount of laughter now that sprang within. 
Rushed through her lips and rippled round her 

guise, 
The very train's hem shaking by the flow. 
Nay, nay, but I shall trust you yet, I thought ; 
To but believe you good, shall hold it true 
That maids, like minnows, seldom show them- 
selves 
Till, caught and drawn from out the open seas, 
They frisk, all safe, within some household pond ! 

Thus thought moved on, the old way, yet so 

strange ; 
For life a balance is of contraries : 
Its every pulse that proves we live must beat 
With deathlike stillness swift alternating. 
One hour my faith in her in sunlight Avalked, 
The next came doubt as lightless as the night. 
All prefaced fitly that which you shall hear. 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



25 



I once had been recalling much of youth, 
Of Elbert ; how, fulfilling plans of old, 
He soon should join me here in Germany. 

" Why Edith," Alice cried, " that must be ours, 
Our Elbert." 

" Yours ? " I asked. 

" Ours," Edith said, 
" Ay, ay ; our families have been friends for 

years." 
But spite her careless tone, her eyes appeared. 
Slipping through lashes long, to shun my OAvn. 

My sharp look, did it cut through hers that 

flushed ? 
What meant the flush ? — I thought of Elbert 

then ; 
His later moods had trailed a glamour strange 
Of witchery somewhere — Could it be that she, — 
My Edith, she was his ? — And he, ray friend. 
Was he the one then that her love had caged, 
And placed it where my eff*ort reaching forth 
Could touch but bars of chill indifference ? — 
Of these two sisters daring not to ask. 
Of Elbert's now, I could not. In the week 
When first we met, had tidings called her home. 
But soon, like worms that would not wait for 

death, 
Fear-fretted jealousies clung round the form 
Of hope expiring, yet to prize her more 
To feel that Elbert too had prized her so. 

In two days after that, he on us burst, 

While all were met, and brought a sudden light 



2G 



IDEALS MADK HEAL. 



Illuminating her, and paling me, 

Blanched, ash-like all, when came so hot a 
flush 

As warmed her welcome. Ah, my heart and 
breath 

In silence seemed to sink, like buzzing bees 

When Autumn steals the sunlight from the flow- 
ers. 

And frost seals down their sweets. I heard them 
talk 

Like one who just has walked a glacier-jjath 

With boistrous friends ; then, stumbling, slips 
away. 

Far sucked through freezing fathoms down to hell, 

Yet hears the cruel lauo;hter cracklins; still. 

This scarce prepared my thought for Elbert's 

glee. 
When then the sisters left. " Aha, good friend, 
So glad to see you ! Such a desert life ! 
And friendship, such an oasis ! — Your health ! 
First clear a dusty throat, and then, my boy. 
With deeper draughts we clear our dusty souls." 

Thus swept he, hurrying on from thought to 

thought, 
Yet found no breath to spare the sisters here. 
Why not ? Could not he trust so old a friend ? — 
Half anxious then, half curious to detect. 
Though wary still of love so subtle all. 
My lips, bold-braced yet trembling at the deed, 
Essayed a note to touch him, — Edith's praise. 

" She looks well," said he, somewhat absently. 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



27 



" She looks well ! " cried I, half-way nettled now ; 
Forsooth, should Edith be abused to show 
What brutes are men who lose their trust ! " She 

looks — 
For what then do you take her ? for a frame 
Whose empty effigy of human shape 
Well fits some shopman's wares of vanity ? — 
Her soul is what I spoke of, soul I mean." 

"Her soul ? " he said ; " may be ; but I, may be, 
Have never seen it." 

" How ? — this too ! " I thought, 
" A slight is it ? — or triumph that he vaunts ? " 

He caught my feeling from my fevered mien, 
And more from words confused ; and, warming 

then. 
Made answer, " Norman, loved I you but less, 
I more might love, and more might spare myself. 
The thing my sister wrote, I deemed her whim ; 
Could not conceive ; and can it yet be true ? — 
I swear, it staggers half one's faith to find 
A man, devoted to the things you claim, 
So little circumspect." 

What meant he now ? 
Could he believe me capable of this, — 
To woo his Edith, knowing she was his ? — 
Could all my sleepless nights, my troubled heart, 
My prayerful deeds, my nature known of old. 
Be so misjudged, and yet no fault in him ? — 
" So little circumspect in what? " I asked. 

And then with words that could but anger me, 
" In what but choice of company ? " he said ; 
" No more you think of study, duty, church, 



28 IDEALS MADE REAL. 

The whole day long you waste with one like this ! — 
Nay, check nie not. I understand my words, — 
This actress, though right artless in her way, 
This actress here, would play " — 

" With me ! *' I cried 
" This ' actress! ' " and I know not what I said ; 
But yet recall what kept him forcing in, 
" You err ! " — " You do me wrong ! " — " Yo' 

know her not ! " — 
Wild words, the which he ended saying then, 
" Not such am I as you profess to be ; 
But had you common sense, no piety, 
You might perceive a farce, if not a fault. 
A broad church yours were surely ! — Humph ! - 

Your mate. 
Attracting toward the stage by charms you lacker 
AVould draw the sinners out, while you th 

saints." 

Struck blind, I scarcely could have felt mor 

stunned. 
Was this the truth ? An actress was she then ^ 
Why had not Elbert's sister told me this ? — 

" Not told you this ? " cried Elbert ; " what ? - 

not told ? — 
Ay, ay, I see. — She hoped that love, perchance - 
It is a Avoman's balm for every ill — 
Might Edith from her present calling woo. 
She knows her not ! — And did not you explain 
She knew not you, your plans." 

" But Edith knew, 
I answered back ; and then, I checked myself 
Had not she blushed to hear that Elbert came ? - 
For fear, Avas it, lest he the truth should tell ? 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 29 

Tell me, her friend ? tell me, deceived, her dupe ? 
Tell me, whose love she might have known, yet 

knew 
That all she seemed to me was not her all ? — 
Alas, coidd love so questioning bear the strain, 
Pure love ? — Those watching by the death-bed 

note 
That souls, just dying, ere above they spring, 
Breathe deep, then pass away. And so with 

minds. 
When comes the deadliest woe. Down deep in 

thought, 
I scarce had deemed that aught from hell could 

roil 
Such dregs of bitterness long undisturbed. 

The fault, sighed conscience, had been all my own : 

How safely might one sail this sea of life 

If all his reckonings fiiithful were to heaven ! 

Ah, siren-like, a rivaling earthly love 

May lure to realms whose mountain heights are 

cloud s. 
Clouds warmly hued above a cold gray shoal 
Whose only outlines are the breakers white, 
Whose only stir, the fury of the storm. 
And I, now finding out the truth, what now ? — 
Should I turn back to aims I knew were safe ? — 
I rose to do it ; yet, I thought, and thrilled, 
Could I her soul but hold, but own herself, 
Though wrecked and ruined, yet the gain were 

sweet. — 
Sweet, sweet, beyond my wreck ? Then why 

not more. 
This side of it ? Did I in God believe ? — 



IDEALS MADE HEAL. 



means r 
Did not lier life need changing ? — What were I 
But faithless wholly, would I try it not ? 

So soon, her thought to draw out, baiting mine, 
Some slur I dropped, suggested by a church. 
It joined a theatre. " Extremes," I said, 
" Have met." 

" Extremes," she said, " have met before ! 
I know your meaning. Elbert has disclosed — 
Nay, not the thing I am, but seem to be 
To those who will not view me as I am. 
You join their lists ? — I hoped for better things." 

*' But was it right to keep me ignorant ? " 

" I hoped it right," she said, " to keep you wise. 
What Elbert thought, I knew. With you, some 

hope 
That she who should not seem so wholly wrong 
Might better represent a class unknown." 

" AVithout design, might represent amiss," 
I answered. " As for you, however classed, 
No class, I fear, could claim you, all in all. 
For all rules have exceptions." 

" Take but rules 
For this time," said she. " Did you ever note 
That ever, when the seers their heaven descry, 
They view a pulpit ? — Nay, to me it seems 
They view a stage with galleries bright around. 
All thronged with wdiite robed hosts attendant 

there. 
If so, why then the stage may hint of good." 



IDEALS MADK KEAL. 31 

" It may," I said, " but does it, as a rule ? " 

" Ah, as a rule," she said, " it hints of life." 

" But mainly life to laugh at or to fear," 
I urged. 

" Our natures need to laugh and shrink," 
She said, " or life would stagnate. As for art. 
Success must image there the life that is. 
And life that is, remember, is the truth. 
So many times my father spoke of this : 
' Of truth we read who spell from nature's page, 
And artists best detect the meaning there, 
Their fancy using like a glass to find 
The infinite force within the finite fact. 
When taught by them it is earth learns at last 
Through every form to read of thought behind. 
Here moves a man, you. say. What see you ? — 

man ? — 
Nay, nay ; that guise material fashions there 
The image only of his manliness. 
And you, imagining from this imagery 
The mood unseen, thus only know the mood. 
Yon little girl that skips beside the porch, 
I know, I love her not, save when I pass 
Behind that face to reach a region rare 
Where dolls seem sentient babes, and brothers 

kings. 
And yonder maidens, musing in delight, 
I know, I love not, till, in sacrifice. 
My spirit seems to yield to their desires ; 
To wait a watchful servant unto them ; 
To move with motives that inspire their deeds ; 
To even gain through their own eyes their views, 



32 



idp:als made real. 



And thrill with rhythm when their ear-drums 

throb ; 
Then, joining .all with all, imagine thus. 
Their hidden inner natures that control. 
So too, through all of life — who more can 

know ? — 
All tilings are fitful images alone, 
Reflecting glory from the Absolute ; 
And he who can imagine from the part 
What marks the whole, he walks in light of 

heaven. 
Find then a life where every child becomes 
Earth's animated toy of manliness, 
Each man the ore from which to mould a god. 
And all earth's smouldering ore, heaven's flame 

anon ; 
You find for mind a life worth living for, 
A life the artist gives it : it is he 
Discerns a Spirit always veiled in shape, 
A soul in man, and reason everywhere.' " 

Ah Edith, so I mused, an artist thou. 
Thou art indeed ! but not an actress, no. 
Whatever may have trained thee, save to tread 
The stage of truth ! and Elbert's every act 
Against my flinty confidence struck fire, 
And flashed each time I met him now, anew ; 
The more so, that each time I met him now. 
In earnest, or to make me more distrust, 
He fluttered like her fan at Edith's side, 
Her silence soothed with subtlest flattery, 
Her vacant hours invaded Avith himself; 
Ah me, and all my life one scheme became 
To steal upon his absence, then to pluck 
Love's fruit that once his presence brought alone. 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



33 



And so, henceforth, I less could welcome him. 
How could I do it, — with his views of her. 
And so impelled ? — Ah, half he made me doubt 
If I could not mistake her, — doubt I checked ; 
Flushed fiercely soon that Elbert so could act 
As it to hint. But when I spoke with him, 
He laughed me off. 

" Why, man, I like your friend, 
And she likes me ; and with the other sex 
The more we like, sometimes, the less we love — 
Or think we love. Do I deceive her then. 
In showing friendliness ? — Why think you so ? — 
Forsooth, if beauty pleases me, I smile. 
If gracefulness beguile, I gaze at it. 
If wisdom awe me, I am all respect. 
Good art, I laud; with fancy, grow a poet; 
And with emotion, an enthusiast. 
What then ? Am I thus proved a hypocrite ? — 
No sympathy is there, not personal ? 
All things we praise must we appropriate ? 
Is beauty such a flower, do you infer. 
Or man so beastlike, having taste for it. 
He needs must go and gorge it down ? — Go 

to! — 
I watch the fair thing ; of its fragrance sniff; 
Then leave for others. Edith knows this well. 
For that, trust her." 

But was it, as he claimed ? 
Were both so wise ? — Or was it all some scheme 
Of his acuteness, us to cut apart? 
This seemed most like him, and most angered 

me. 
Was I a boy that he should foil me thus ? 
3 



o4 IDHALS MADE REAL. 

Yet what to do ? — The more I searched for it, 

The more I saw but only one true course. 

Our aims — my own and Edith's — differed much. 

Yet felt I more than this. Our hearts were one 

In all the love innate, inspiring aims. 

Suppose our lives and thus our hearts were 

joined ; 
Could not my love and hers, together put, 
Outweigh such aims as should be hers alone ? 
Why not have faith in love, mine joined with 

hers ? 
What power was stronger in the universe ? 
Why not have faith to trust this only soul 
That ever I had met to wdiom my moods 
Could all unroll, assured of insight there 
To reml them rightly — why it seemed decreed, 
Her power to read my soul gave her the right 
To know its love, whatever might be hers. 
And were I but to speak the truth to her, 
So tell her all, wdiy fear this simple truth? 
For I would say I loved, but not her aims. 
If then she loved her aims still more than me. 
It would be proof that she could love me not. 
And if she loved me more than these, her aims, 
It would be proof that hers could yield to mine. 

So near the sunset of a summer's day, 

And through the park there, walking toward the 

lake, 
" I think," I breathed out cautiously, " to write 
A story all of love ; and I have planned 
The plot to open here. In after time, 
If interest it waken, some, perchance, 
Mav love to linjier here recallinjr it. 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 35 

Look now — this lake. To gain the full effect 
Of palace, park, and yonder heaven unveiled. 
One, downward gazing, in the water's depth 
Should note all, washed from gross reality, 
And — as in art — reflected. With this view 
This tale of mine shall open. First of all, 
Here, in the sunshine nearest to our feet, — 
Ay, in the water ; ay, friend, here I mean, — 
Just underneath us, — mark you, mark you, 

there, 
The hero, and beside him, his ideal ! " 

And when she saw herself, " What ? how ? " she 

cried ; 
And then, all silent, stood. But I sped on, 
Detailing all my plans and all my hopes, 
How she, with soul so true and aims so high. 
Might meet in them the mission meant for her, — 
How earth's iniquity should be redeemed 
Through sacrifice, the deeds of such as wc. 

Still stood she silent. Then I spoke again, 
" But think not, Edith, for the plans alone 
I plead with you. I plead too for myself; 
The plans detailing that you know myself; 
Yet holding not I stand above you, friend. 
Nay, times are, I feel worthy scarce to touch 
Your finger's tips, or upright stand and taint 
The level of the air you breathe in ; nay, 
I would not judge your life ; would only crave, 
When we have so much else in sympathy, 
That holy state where two souls, else at one. 
Would both be God's. — Ah could you thus be 
mine ? " 



36 



IDEALS MADE IlEAl. 



Her silence then was broken. " Friend, dear friend, 

I might be proud, thus yours. Who could not 
find 

All, meet for manhood, in your manliness? 

But no, for you forgot — such different aims ! 

You never told me all these plans before. 

And, Norman, now — no, no ; for, through your 
church 

That fanned some thought obscure there smoul- 
dering, 

Some spark of doubt, to ardent heresy, 

My father sufl'ered ; lost his honored name, 

His living, all ; nor hoarded scanty means 

To leave his daughter ignorant of the cause. 

And I ? — no, no ; it courses through my blood ; 

My tastes you but mistake. Our paths must 
branch ; 

I, live the minister of only art." 

" But Edith,'' urged I, " truth may more include 
Than most men deem who would deem all things 

theirs. — 
Your tastes are not religious ? — Mine are not. 
If by religion you mean piety, — 
Religion's scum that bubbles to be seen. 
But how is it beneath the surface, friend ? 
Down deep Avithin ? — is not the substance there ? 
Ah, never did I seem religious more 
Than Avhen at one Avith you ? " 

She spoke alone 
To tell me all : " her father's legacy 
Had been her sister, Avhom she must not leave. 
For her sake, seeking means of livelihood, 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



37 



She first rejected, then accepted this. 

And now, by truest love, was wed to it. 

So too her sister ; ay, for both of them 

Each hope, each joy, each thought at all of life 

Was bounded now by music, and the stage. 

No use was it to offer proof to her : 

Not logic leads the artist on, but light." 

She spoke in vain — I could not give her up. 

Next day I urged her, hoping her to swerve. 

My slight of music, rousing her defense. 

But proved how weak my love to rival it. 

" My father oft," she said, " would quote your 

Book ; 
Say ' music marshaled all the better life. 
What else could sway the soul, yet love leave free 
To think, and choose, and do ? ' — and strains so 

sweet " 
She added, while before us played the band, 
" What different moods they move in different 

minds ! 
That maid may smile and sigh midst dreams of 

love ; 
Her dark attendant dream of but her gold : 
Tliat matron plan some fresh self-sacrifice ; 
And that spare fellow, twirling, near her side, 
His shy mustache that shrinks behind his lips. 
Plan only how to hide their stingy look. 
And thus all listen, musing different things ; 
And all, with conscious freedom, musing thus ; 
And yet one harmony controls them all. 
Aroused or calmed to match its changing flow. 
What else but music frees the mind it rules ? 
' Good will to man,' Avas spoken first in song." 



do IDEALS MADK REAL. 

" Good will/' I said, " but follows will for good." 

" And will for good will come," she answered 

back. 
" As in the older advent, so to-day, 
Would I believe in power behind sweet song 
To hold the universe in harmony, 
Expelling evil and iin})eHing good 
Through all the limits of created life, — 
A spirit's power ! — What though we mortals 

here. 
With eyes material, cannot scan its hosts ? 
They issue forth in forms that while they move 
Awake around us echoes everywhere. 
We start to spy them, but we find them not. 
But just their rustle in the trees they pass ; 
Or where, with dash of water o'er the rocks, 
They leave the sea or linger in the rill. 
At times, they rest a moment on the earth, 
With twilight languor, sighing gently then ; 
And lull to dreams, with tones in sympathy, 
The lowly insect and the lowing herd. 
At times, amid the winds that rise at morn, 
They sweep along the land and startle sleep 
From nervous birds that twitter through their 

track. 
And, now and then, in clouds that close the sky. 
They bound adown the rift the lightning cleaves 
Till sunlight overhead pours through agaii*. 
A spirit's power has music ; and must rule 
Unrivaled still as far as sense can heed. 
Or reason hark behind it. All the chords 
Of all things true are tuned by hands divine, 



IDKALS MADE REAL. 39 

And thrill to feel the touch ! — 

But sounds arise 
In souls untuned, like harp-strings when they 

snap. 
Things whir like midnight nothings to the sneak, 
And fright like forests when the dark leaves blow 
About the solitary murderer. — 
And sweetest sounds to sweetest souls on earth 
May bring but foretastes vague of harmony : 
The school girl heeds her comrade's ringing 

laugh, — 
Scarce more than tuning ere a chord is struck ; 
The maiden hears the lover's mellow tones, — 
But only key-notes sounding for the whole ; 
The dame has voices sweet that cheer her 

home, — 
And they perchance prelude the theme of heaven. 
Ay, ay ; and blows of toil and battle guns. 
These too are drum-rolls of the bands that move 
To meet the marshaled glories sure to come. 
Ah me, we need but wait ; we all must hear, 
And all things music ! far above at last. 
Must hear the treble, thrilling down from heaven, 
And concord space throughout, and trembling hell 
But crashed to echo back its thundering bass." 

So Edith spoke ; while I, left lonely all. 
Beheld her, ardent for her art, a cloud. 
Aglow by dawn, then drawn away, away. 

I said, I know not what ; but far too proud, 
[ntoxicated though I was by love. 
To let her view the folly of my flill, 



40 



[DEALS MADE REAL. 



I said not all I felt ; but what I felt, 

Beneath the first fierce humbling of the storm, 

Floods over memory yet with half the woe 

That overwhelmed me then. Am I, I thought, 

So strong in love, and waiting long for it. 

And always true, am I to be outweighed 

By merest chaff of manhood, on the stage. 

Or in the pit ? I swore 'twas always so 

With all her sex. AVorth never weighed a straw. 

A very satyr could outwoo a sage. — 

Weak woman ! yet she must be weak — in brain 

Or body. Let her first be weak in brain : 

Some chance then she would serve a husband's 

thought ! 
Some chance that wisdom rule the family ! 
Or else, too strong of mind to serve his thought, 
She otherwise would slave it. Brains to wed. 
Commend one as a fool. 

And then I stopped : — 
Here raved I, jealous of this fool alone. 
This coming clown. — I blushed to think of him. — 
But what of her? — of Edith?— She should live, 
Her figure robed to fascinate — ah — crowds ! 
The rabble should be ravished just forsooth 
To clap with crazy hands the rarer air 
In which she moved. For them, her voice should 

sound. 
With slightest trills so swaying all their kind 
That thronging cheers should thunder in re- 
sponse ! — 
Her face, so sweet, should plead till foulest souls 
Should feel how pure the joys beyond their reach. 
And lono; for thino;s that never one could taint ! 



IDEALS MADE REAL. ' 41 

My sweet, sweet love ! — 

But all, at Edith's side, 
Should I be aught ? — Alas, I could but seem — • 
Behind the gilded glory of the stage. 
Behind the loud-mouthed suitors of the show, 
Why, why, a dog, at some back door to wait, 
With signaling bark to jar the echoes sweet 
Of all-thc-town's applause. She mine would be 
But as the sun, when rests his flaming brow 
Against the evening sea Hushed far and near, 
Is thine, O trembling spray-drop, dreaming it. 
Since all his image glows within thy grasp ! — 
Fool, fool ! yet dear, dear folly ! 

These my thoughts ; 
My words — all I recall now — came at last 
When slowly sauntering back we reached her 

home. 
" Would God," I sighed, " the time could come for 

us. 
When, looking toward the future now so dark. 
We two should need no more to say good-night." 

" Good-bye," she said, and left me in the gloom. 

Then was it, as I turned about, by chance, 

I came on Elbert ; and my whole soul surged 

To dash at him its briny bitterness. 

Is he here, thought I, he to whom, alas, 

The very potion, poisoning all my hopes, 

Shall foam, the sparkhng nectar of success; 

Ay, bring good cheer, though bringing death to 

me ? — 
Then let him share it ! — Still, my wiser pride 



42 IDEALS MADE REAL. 

The purpose cliecked, and balancing rash liate 
With hateful prudence, met his open smile 
But with a frown that closed, to greet him not. 

With any truth to self, so argued I, 
1 could not do aught else ; nor could abide 
A town that held them. So I left the town. 
And so, at once, these foremost friends of life 
And I had parted ; not as friends should part, 
With all love's zenith fevered like the skies 
Where eve has rent from them a glorious sun. 
Then cooled anon with starlight sprinkled thick 
Until the sun come back. We cracked apart. 
Like ice-bergs drifting southward, joined no more, 
And sunned alone as each shall melt away. 

No use, it is ; I cannot now recall — 

I would not if I could, my suffering. 

From Elbert, best of friends, my nobler self. 

My soul of virtue and my heart of love. 

What cause could rightly tear me ? — Asking 

this, 
My love rose up from reason to rebel ; 
Indignant all to think a theory 
Should dare to hold an innate impulse down ; 
While will, caught there, between the heart and 

head, 
Each charge would bear, and yet forbear to act. 

And Edith, peerless Edith ! how I strove 
To her forget ; and, striving evermore. 
How fair her form, conjured by raving thought, 
Would rise, a Venus o'er mv sea of sighs. 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 43 

Till I would liusli, and seem to plead anon 
That I who would forget, might be forgiven. 
Then how would judgment tear her traits apart ; 
The petals pluck from each dear grace that 

flowered ; 
And hope its naked stem some trace would show 
Too void of beauty then to still suggest 
The bloom and sweetness of the life I loved. 
Alas, but while I wrought for this alone, 
How would her virtues but the more unfold ! — 
Like God's own glory flowering in the skies, 
And scanned by those who would not find it there, 
But, when they test the stars, must deal with light. 

I wrought and rested ; it was all in vain. 

My highest consolation was the hope 

That hard earned sleep might hold me long in 

dreams, 
Where evermore my soul might with her dwell. 
Though evermore each morning dawned more 

lone. 
Awake, asleep, throned constant o'er my heart, 
I served this image all intangible. 
This photographic fantasy of truth, 
This fairy nothingness of vanished fact, 
A shape to love, minute ye! mighty still. 
To sense but nothing, yet to spirit all. 

Thus lived I, triumphed over ; as the clouds 
Whereon the sun sits throned, all bright are they, 
And bright beneath them is the sunset sea. 
In splendid serfdom to its love, my soul. 
That shone with a kindred glory, thence beheld 
A kindred glory shine on all about. 



44 IDEALS MADK REAL. 

Nay, nay, no wliim was this ; it fills my creed : 
The touch of all true love regenerates. 
When born the lover, one is born anew ; 
And all liis family of fancies then 
Bear family traits : those loving and those not 
Live wide apart as rainbows and the rain. 
I might be superstitious, but to me 
The temple of my life's experience 
Had been less sacred, had it held no shrine 
Whereon to place the offerings sweet of love. 
And all things there more holy loomed around, 
Illumed by holy lights of memory. 

Nor long was it, ere all love drawing nigh. 
Wherever aimed, I learned to appropriate. 
When turned to all invoking sympathy, 
My wishes wrought like witches, and conjured 
The thing they wished for : sympathy would 
come. 

And so, my moods, thus moving on, at last 
Found special pleasure in a friendship formed 
Upon a day of tramping through the Alps. 
Her name was Grace, and gracious was her mien ; 
And graces everywhere attended her 
Through jars and joys of journeys afterward. 
By far less splendid than my Edith was. 
Less striking, less alluring, and less shunned ; 
Her brilliance would not dim a rival's eyes, 
Nor fiiirness shade another's face with frowns. 
One saw in her a modest, model maid, 
A woman loved by women ; and with men 
A presence, mellow-lighting like the moon ; 



IDEALS MADE KEAL. 45 

Yet bright, not always. When my storms came 

on, 
As now they came on often, then it seemed 
Her very mildness made her moods too dull 
To penetrate the clouds that covered mine. 

" It must be lonesome, very," would she sigh ; 
" A stranger-land indeed, lor one like you ! 
What think you? day by day, could not we meet, — 
Church people here ? and live here, more at one ? " 

When hearts hold secrets, even love that comes, 
And comes in crowds, will bring the prying soul 
Intent to spring them open. How I shrank 
To meet in such no depth of sympathy 
Below the tongues and teeth and lips allied 
To shape one shibboleth ! But made to feel 
Foretokened fate like this, I felt me faint ; 
Scarce more a soldier falling at his post. 
With heart shelled out and emptied of his soul. 
I could but find excuses, partly real 
And partly feigned, the fringe of ready whims. 

She startled echoes out my inmost soul 
Through muttering of my " life-work." 

" Yes," I said ; 
"All Christ's should sympathize. AH own one 

lord ; 
All wait one shore beside ; all watch one tide. — 
So too do snipes and snails ! so those decreed 
To rule one town beyond it there, or ten. 
Souls differ, Grace ; and John from James, as 

well 
As both from Judas. — Judas lino;ers too." 



46 IDKALS MAI>K 15KAL. 

" So many," sighed she, " Christ's in nnnie alone, 
Absorbed in change of scene, or merely art ! " 

Regard for Edith, was it, that in me 

Had roused at last a champion of art? — 

" However or wherever plied," I said, 

'' Real power for good, enough good owns to claim 

Some courtesy from Christian charity. 

If I but fling this stone in yonder pond, 

Small matter where it fall ; the whole is ruffed. 

So if one use religion here or art 

The whole man he may move, and move for good." 

" Ah, but," she breathed, with slight dogmatic 

stress, 
" A simple woman, I would move the heart ; 
Through love, as Christ did too ; not so ? " 

" Well, well," 
I said, " do this yoiu'self ; you own the right ; 
Ay, get it from your friends' self-consciousness. 
But yet your question, — no, I dare not, no, 
Not limit Him ; not if the church speak true ; 
If He the Truth embodied with the Life ; 
If He were all in all, — his holiness, 
His wholeness ; and his perfectness, the proof 
Of Godhead. — Nay, nor dare I limit those 
Who follow where he leads. They His may live. 
Not aiming here nor there, but everywhere 
To make the most of all God meant them for. 
And things there are that art can do for man 
To make him manlier. Not the senseless rock 
Is all it fashions into forms of sense; 
But senseless manhood, natures hard and harsh, 
Great classes crushed, and races forced to crawl 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



47 



Till all theii" souls are stained with smut and 

soil, — 
These, too, more human seem when hands of art 
Have grasped their better traits and hold them 

forth. 
Then earth that views in part these better traits, 
In part the tender care that holds them forth, 
Sees beauty where before no beauty seemed ; 
Until all hearts more kindly beat to heed 
The lessons taught by man's Humanities. 
And so I think, albeit the wilderness 
Oftimes some John in camel's hair may need, 
There open too, in walks of life less wild, 
More ways where love may plead in guise more 

soft. 
In short, so long as choice permitted is, 
'T is best to do what one can do the best." 

" Oh, you perplexing ! " cried she ; " not for me, 
For your brain. Tell, pray, where it rummaged 

last, 
To catch these cobwebs ? — I have seen them, yes ; 
These halls are full of them, and libraries. 
Old musty things ! — But, Norman, soberly, 
This German text is bad for eye-sight, yes ; 
And half I doubt — Come, tell me, tell the truth, 
Do you see clearly aught that you can do ? " 

" Why so ? " I asked ; " do you ? " 

" Why not," she said, 
All serious now, " do what shall yield life's day 
The most of glory at its evening hour ? — 
And suns set brightest after davs of storm." 



48 



IDEALS MADE KEAL. 



" What always ? " asked I, " are you sure of 

this ? — 
I know true faith that mainly aims to rid 
Our present life from fear of future ill. 
To it what need of storms, if sunshine here 
May best prepare one for the future calm ? 
That calm eternal is ; but, even so, 
HoAv judge we of the eternal, save by time? 
AVhat know we of enjoyment, ending not, 
Beyond our own, if only made to last ? 
What know of being blessed, if not this, — 
To find the process of becoming blest 
Made permanent; faith's wings that falter here 
Full fledged to fly by habit ? — If so, what ? — 
Heaven's habits form like earth's. Suppose a 

youth 
That, by and by, much wealth he may enjoy, 
Act miserly. What gains he by and by ? — 
Much wealth, perhaps ; but with it, holding still 
His actions miserlv, no more mere acts 
But grown activities, established traits, 
Incorporated modes of all his life ; 
With these he holds what most unfits his soul 
To use wealth, or enjoy it. So on earth 
If avarice, aimed for heaven, make man a monk. 
What gains he by and by ? — If monkish moods. 
These grown activities, established traits, 
Incorporated modes of all his life ; 
In holding these, his soul must with them hold 
What most unfits it to enjoy — not here, 
In any sphere at all, — a life of love." 

" You surely would not mean," she asked and 
paused. 



IDKALS MADE REAL. 



49 



" That you could now forego your hopes ? your 

vows ? 
Your life-work "? — seek enjoyment ? " 

" Ah," said T, 
" Enjoyment is the man's most genuine praise 
To Him that framed his being. What should I, 
A child of God, do here but live God's life ? — 
Which is not now, nor then, but evermore. 
My soul must thrive the best, as best I mal<e 
My now, eternal ; my eternal, now. 
Tlius moved, all blows, adverse to highest good, 
I but resist ; and, parrying off, grow strong. 
And all the sunshine finds a welcome here ; 
And all my heart, thrown open, sweet is made. 
Thus comprehending now, in present life, 
God's comprehensiveness of great and small. 
My heaven begun — why praise I not flir more 
Than can that slandering slattern of the soul, 
Aceticism, shuffling toward far bliss. 
Slip-shod and sniveling? " — 

" Now, that goes too far ! " 
Cried Grace, " Am I thus ? — what ? — Ah, but 

I know 
A man so moody! — Own it. Were I you, 
I just would set to work. To work off whims 
The best way, say they, is to work them out : 
One hand at work is worth ten heads that 

shirk." 

" Ah, I am moody ! " sighed I ; " you complain. 
Moods seem not meet. Oh no ; they prove we 

feel ! - 
Not pious : prove we think ! " 

Yet verily, 
4 



50 



IDEALS MADP: real. 



I could but blame myself; so fain to draw 
This gentler soul from sweet, still streams of life 
Toward waves so roughly dashed about my own ! 
You know though, how it is : our thought, like 

light, 
Opposed, will vaunt itself; and brighest play, 
Glanced off from things it does not penetrate. 
So, less to sympathize wirh, than to shock. 
My thought played round the surface of a life 
Some cause had shaped to make so smooth a 

thing 
I burned to warp it of complacencj'. 
Oft, though unconscious of the least design, 
I seemed to fall in fancied depths of woe, 
And mock, that I might hear her call me thence : 
Ay, learned therein some envy toward the rake. 
For what a charm it were to hear, — not so? 
That is if one were vicious, through and through, — 
Such pleas for love from lips that aye were pure ? 
The very depth of one's un worthiness 
Made possibility of worth so SAveet ! 

But weeks and months passed by, in which she 

filled 
A certain void in life ; and, every eve, 
We seemed to meet, to meet the more, old friends. 
Once, ending thus the labors of the day, 
We chanced upon a way where, sauntering too, 
Lo, Elbert entered to encounter us. 

At first scarce friendly, after divers tests, 
And in the new light of my life with her. 
His older love returned with oldest warmth : 
" To think so thin a fancy," he exclaimed, 



[DEALS MADE KEAL. 



51 



" As last I found you folded in, should screen 
Our genuine hearts, a moment, each from each! " 

The fancy thin ! — I let him keep his word ; 
I would not argue, — Still, with care aroused 
■^ro guai'd some credit yet for having sense, 
I hinted other truth; how I had changed, — 
Not I, so much, — my thought about myself, 
About my life-work ; " Elbert, think of it, 
That fancy thin a true phase showed of me, 
A spray but on a constant sea within. 
That heaves and heaves. With moods, the kind 

mine are, 
So maddened by traditions, calmed by dreams; 
Scarce happy ever till at hazard dashed 
Along a course to sheer uncertainty 
That keen imagination more may spy 
In things material than material are. 
That fancy may create all ; — what am I 
For life-work, now, like priesthood, sure in creeds 
And sureties for the soul, whereon may lean 
All weaker souls, with warrant not to bend ? " 

Then Elbert laughed. " But were you now a 

bow. 
Through bending most you shot most. — Not a 

priest ? 
A man alone ? — You yet a brother are 
To many a soul that sails this sea of life, 
Where oft the horizon trembles with the change 
Of wind and Avave ; and oft too hale hope mourns 
Fair promises, like skies that fade in fog. 
A man alone ? — And yet, the moods of man 
May make men love us for our manliness. 



52 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



Till, Christ-like througii our s}inpatliy, we draw 
Toward self, God's image here, and thus toward 
Hhii." 

" But draw men how ? " I cried. " Woe me, I 

stand, 
A poet born, who deemed his Muse had fled ; 
That time and trouble had a stone rolled up, 
Her sweet form sealing in its sepulchre. 
Yet lo ! one breath of love could rouse the dead. 
All day the subtle spirit haunts me now, 
A medium thrilled to sound its sweetness forth." 

" Well, Avell ; " he said, " then let it sound. Rare 

rest, 
Were all one's recreation freshened thus ; 
One's slumber serenaded by the Muse." 

" One's recreation ! slumber ! " I exclaimed ; 
" Is mind a deep that wells with most of thought 
When void the most ? I tell you naught can draw 
One truthful inspiration save from truth. 
Your poetry may people heaven like clouds, 
All phantom shaped, and splendid as their sun ; 
But know, these forms above were vapors first. 
Heaven di'ew from depths below. Thought issues 

thus, 
In holiday attire, with all its life, 
The inertia large of philosophic force 
Forced into play ; the dream-land opening where 
The day's task closes." 

" Be it so," he said, 
" The pastime of a life-work." 

" Ah," I sighed, 



[DEALS MADE REAL. 



53 



" Too much of work brings too much sleep, — no 

dreams ! 
If one were but a harp the Muse should play, 
What could lie better do than toil to keep 
His thought and feeling close attuned to truth : 
And this took all his labor ! He who seeks 
With those few cords that nature dealt to him 
To string both harp and bow, may harm the one, 
And may not help the other. We are men ; 
With narrowed aims of men must bide content. 
If, Adam-like, we would be gods, we fall. 
Not given to mortal is the life supreme, 
In naught unbalanced, laden light in naught, 
Existence evermore at equipoise, 
Complete with that which on itself depends. 
Oft, who his worth would double, nothing does 
Except to break the back of worth that was. 
While doubled burdens fall to doubled waste. 
We men should humbler be, and pray to heaven 
To have horizons hanging nearer us. 
Our views too broad unfit our minds for earth, 
Yet fit them not for loneliness divine, — 
The wild chill chaos, back behind the stars ? " 

Thus would I talk, and trouble Elbert much. 

For he would rouse me in his rattling way : 

" Why, Norman, you are hedging all our hopes. 

Do not you pity moods that dote on you V 

If, man, your metajjhysics be not yet 

Beyond all physics, pray you cure yourself; 

Be more material ; or material powers 

Will alienated grow, or you forget. 

And count you out from all their reckonings ; 

And you who are of earth, shall earth own not ; 



54 



lUKALS AIADE HKAL. 



And you who would be heaven's, Srhall licaven 

own not. 
To own yourself and only own yourself, 
Is Avorse than serfdom that has earned its smile, 
Though bnt from wrinkling cheeks of sham good- 
will." 

Then, through my gloom exploring for its source, 
His thought Avould light on Edith. He was right; 
Perhaps less right, grew garrulous of Grace. 
For deeming love renewed my only hope, 
And, seeking this, determined it to find, 
My slightest flush could furnish him a glow 
As bright to light his pathway as the day. 

Of course, I could deny it ; could protest 
T knew and owned no key, her heart to ope ; 
Our lips, e'en parting but to speak of love. 
Infringe on Cupid, and, before they close, 
Some tingling arrow of that jealous god 
Will make them drop all soberness. 

He laughed : 
"Now say you never saw the sea for waves; 
Or stars, for twinkling ; or the trees, for leaves ; 
But tell me not, you never saw the heart 
That bosom heaves ; nor ever saw the play 
Of faith and freak within that twinkling eye ; 
Nor ever saw the spirit when the smile 
That breaks in laughter shakes the form aside. 
Come, friend, I know you better. Say you err ; 
Or, by my soul, I never read you yet." 

^' And more," said I ; " she is not my ideal." 

He laughed again : " Some men who court ideals 
Had first their idol ; and, the false god fell'd, 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 55 

Hoard then the fringe that dangled on its train ; 
And spend their lives in hunting other trains 
To match but forms and colors of the first. 
It strikes me, friend, that all things truthful grow. 
E'en love outgrows the fashion of its youth : — 
The world has whirled apace ; and different hues 
Surround the noonday's sun. No dawn returns. 
What form or color robes the infinite ? — 
Yet aught to worship matches that alone. 
Look rather not for worship, but for worth. 
You need a mate, friend ; not a mystery." 

" A mate," I said ; " but she, all truth I prize, 
My very soul, could waive ; and with a jest.'* 

Still Elbert parried me ; " To hear you prate 

Of truth — with women. Why, you tried that 

once. 
With Edith, not so? — and she liked it, eh? 
Herself had love for this same truth ? — AVhat 

then ? — 
How very strange, when, yesterday, she passed, 
She craved no more of it." 

" She passed ? " I cried. 

" Ay, ay," he said ; " while you, so wrapped in 

Grace, 
Walked near ; and noted nothing. How she 

laughed ! — 
Then spoke of ' haste, such haste, she could not 

stop ; 
And I, I must not tell you.' — Thus, you see, 
T keep my word ; I promised nothing though." 



56 



DEALS MADE. IJEAL. 



I felt me flush : it but encouraged liim. 

" This flame of sympatliy you deemed so bright, 

Extinguislied was ; you may have thought by 

me. 
If so, I tell you, friend, 't was lightly done. 
I but outblew you ; and the moral is : — 
True flames, these women flicker with the wind. 
But use you breath enough, their natures yield. 
Yet blow for their sakes, not your own ideal's. 
Man seldom finds a sweetheart here so sweet 
She loves mere pining lor ideal worth. 
Truth is, that they the all-in-all would seem ; 
And so live jealous of our male ideals. 
Then, too, they are creative less than we ; 
And so crave more the creature ; love and serve 
Embodied life that may be seen and felt. 
You doubt me ? — Test it. — Read that rh}me 

you wrote ; 
Inspired by fancy. — Say so ; — still they hint, 
' Ah, this was she, or she ; some love-afl'air.' 
Chance is, that Grace does slight your love of 

truth. 
It so is better ; more you seem her own." 

" More like," I cried, " she holds my truth and me 
More like champagne, — a thing that pops and 

shocks. 
But yet enlivening Avhen the hour is dull." 

" And likes the shocking," said he. " Know you 

not 
Most maids love mastery ? aye the closest cling 
To those who show the strength to hold them fast ? 
Full many a suitor, now, will win his love, 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



57 



And treat her merely like some petted puss ; 

Caress, then cuff, until she yields at last, 

Won solely through superior willfulness. 

Who much defers to her, she pities him ; 

And names him friend, because she feels him frail. 

Her favorite cavalier seems less a friend, 

At first, than foe who stays the brunt in time 

To seem to save her when she seems to fiiU." 

"And ought to charge him ! " cried I. " But not 

strange 
Such onsets numb her senses, now and then ! 
Save earth from women trained to feel but weak, 
With all experience nurtured not to think. 
But schooled to passions pert of dwarfed desires. 
Afraid of truth and dodging toward deceit. 
Let loose in homes, one finds their thing for 

thought 
As dry and hollow as a sounding board 
Behind a tongue that, like a weather vane. 
But creaks with windy scandal of the town 
Till endless malice makes his ear-drum ache. 
At one spot hammered sore, and o'er and o'er. 
With humdrum gossip of surrounding naught. 
Small profit they, to crown oift* courtships grand. 
So prinked with flowers and flattery ! Wise man ; 
Flowers draw the bee, and flattery the fool. 
One stings ; the other — laugh not, Elbert, nay, 
You know it well, what friendship craves ; and 

these. 
These simpering women, testing manhood's woof 
By worthless nap that tickles vanity, — 
Well, I shall wait some coming woman, I, 
Who need no suing since our spirits suit ; 
Nor rulino; either. — Love shall rule us both." 



58 IDEALS MADE REAL. 

" You true Pygmalion," cried lie, " make a maid ! — 
But all maids grow to us, when wedded once ; 
So practical, they are, far more than men, 
And yield to powers that be. Though caught, 

like fish, 
Through bait they crave not ere men tender it, 
They cling to love once offered them. Well, too, 
They are not male friends. Then those homes of 

ours 
Would hold us hardly, for our rivals there. 
Accept the facts, friend; in this world of reals, 
Ideals oft must yield. So look to Grace ; 
Despite your protests, just the match for you. 
Such women's love is limitless when won. 
You like her, too ; now, now " — 

And so we talked. 
I never thought it meant much; for we talked 
Of all things, almost ; and, in play, at times. 
Would I indulge in hopes that he were right. 
Once too, far up in clouds, my fancy feigned 
To ask if then her friends, or she, would wish 
My calling hers to be. I scarce had thought 
A whim like this could Elbert so mislead. 
From time to time, I marked him much with 

Grace ; 
But naught surmised until came out, at last : 

" All right, my Norman ; I have talked with her ; 
All but to tell her why I talked with her ; 
And with her parents talked ; and all agree, 
And praise and prize a plan of life like }ours. 
These latter actually sigh, at last, 
* If we but had a child for work like this ! ' — 
So, friend, your Avay is clear." 

But was it clear ? — 



IDEALS MADK RKAL. 59 

So sure was it, that I could pluck tliis fruit? 
If sure, so sure the Eden opened not 
To tempt, as well as bless ? — How could it be ? 
Came love for me at last? — The hope was sweet; 
Yet strange ! — Why strange ? — The change ? — 

seemed all change so ? — 
Yet marriage ? — Why did mortals marry then ? — 
For love, was said, for love. And what was love ? 
What more than liking well ? — Whom liked I so ; 
And all in all, and always ? — Edith ? — What ? — 
And liked her calling ? — If I liked not that, 
I liked not her ; not wholly. If not her. 
Then no one : this test failed. I must select — 
And how do this ? — Why how, in anything ? — 
With judgment, surely. Grace could stand that 

test. 
Why not be ruled by judgment? — I would try. 
And surely life were sweet with one like her. 

I thought ; but all my thinking stirred but thouglit 
Until, one time, I mused of other days ; 
How once, and at the merest hint of love. 
My younger blood, like some just conquering host 
That trembling hope bears on, would bound my 

veins 
That thrilled and thrilled as shook each trodden 

pulse ; 
How, hot as deserts scorched by swift simoons. 
And wild as forests filled with sudden blasts. 
My frame would glow and bend at every breath 
That tidings bore about the soul I loved. 
Love Grace did I ? — How then had love been 

tamed ! 



60 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



Mere self-control, was it, that, strong to hold, 

Had broken in, at last, that bounding blood, 

And held the rein to joy '? — Ah, self-control, 

The rest rheumatic of a zest grown old. 

It came with time ; but mine had come from care. 

Cold self-control, the curiae of northern climes, 

The artful despot of the Arctic heart, — 

Alas, my summer scarce had warmed me yet — 

Was it to freeze me with its wintry clutch 

Of colorless inditference ? streaining love 

To chill and check till stilled in ice-like death ? 

Woe me, I sighed ; but then with nobler cause. 
More nobly moved, I mourned that older love. 
It aye had come from regions far and pure. 
From sacred heights of dream-land and desire. 
And trailing light like Moses' from the mount. 
With one hand clasphig mine, one pointing up 
To something earthly, yet more near the sky. 
It aye had Hushed the throbbing veins it neared 
With pride, yet blushing like the peasant's brow 
The sovereign's hands have touched, that bears 

away 
Ennobled blood forever ! — This though, this, 
This latter mood, this sisterly regard. 
So cold, so calm, so cautious, — what was this ? 
To call it love, my sj)irit could have swooned. 
Shrunk like a parent's when he finds his child, 
The mind he hoped Avould think, a gibberhig 

blank. — 
But then, and underneath my whole despair, 
With one deep sigh that lojsened all my soul. 
Like kisses sweet of sudden death that draws 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



61 



To sudden bliss ; readied too, like heavenly 

peace, 
Through battle fields, all roar and smoke and 

blood, 
Came hope for Edith ; — and my shaken powers 
Lost hold of Grace forever ! 

Still would doubt 
Survive and ask if, always off my guard, 
In fancy rampant, I had Grace deceived 
As I had Elbert ? Could it be, indeed. 
That I, who wished it not, had won her love ? 
And if so, what ? — The problem wore me thin ; 
My witless self all whittled off to point 
This single question. 

It was solved at last ; 
I dropped a chance surmise, — what one *' should 

do. 
If loving one who clearly loved him not ? " 

She arched her answer with so rare a blush, 

At once were doubts dispelled ; and, catching 

truth 
From hers, contagious ; like a boy confused, 
All fused in frankness bubbling o'er the brim, 
I blurted out about my older love ; 
To root it out would root out love itself; 
Not root it out, a rival leave no place. 

"Yourself you meant?" she cried, with look so 

changed. 
My weight of shame had sunk me through the 

floor. 
But, forced to words, like one some startling 

shocks, 



62 IDEALS MADK KEAL. 

I stammered, " Elbert," — and was shocked in 

truth ; 
For had I wrenched it from her bodily, 
Scarce redder had her flushing brow repelled 
My wresting rudely such a secret thence. 
At one bound then, my honor had returned. 
A bandit had I been, to spring apart 
That casket locked ; — but ah ! had spied her 

soul ! — 
And back to right it brought me. " Pardon, 

Grace," 
1 cried, then hushed : A strange and holy power, 
One gush like love seemed fountained in my heart, 
And showered and streamed through all my thrill- 
ing veins ; 
And then I checked it. Not for me was she, 
Alas, unworth}' ! She was Elbert's — all ! 

" Grace, Grace," I cried, " my friend, now doubly 

friend ; 
And doubly dear, since Elbert's dearest friend ; 
Thank Heaven that you have loved 'so true a man. 
I go " — 

" No never, no," she pleaded it ; 
And urged a vow ; but 1 who vowed took heed, 
Made loose the letter tor the spirit's sake ; — 
If Elbert loved not, then would I obey. 

But Elbert, found, the whole sweet truth confessed ; 

With all his love for her so satisfied. 

And all his sacrifice for me so clear ; 

I honored God the more from this, the hour 

I spied His honor so encased in man. 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



63 



" Yet no ; for you, you brought me her," he said. 
" And I no love had (h-eanied, befoi'O had sought 
Your cause to plead. Then, aimed for what it 

sought, 
My will stood willful. Thtre you know the 

whole." 
And soon, as if he feared our former strife 
Were not yet stilled, " And you, perhaps, were 

right 
With Edith, too," he said ; " at least, were safe. 
Still hold to truth. One time, it saved us both." 

And then I learned, as other friends have learned, 
Who strove my joy for them, with them to share, 
How much more joy was theirs, when theirs 

alone ; — 
A truth scarce aimed my thought to turn aside 
From self left lonelier now than e'er before. 
I strove to all forget in work. The work 
Was but a worm's that eats from day to day 
The morrow's bed, at morning dragging on 
A soulless trunk, through troubles void of hope. 

My soul seemed roused alone with startled sighs 
As Edith crossed its vision. Then my moods, 
When fell again the former gloom, would grieve 
To think with lives apart earth bungled so. 
And souls assorted but by callings, crafts. 
The dusty imprint of the things they touched. 
•' As well," I cried, " to judge of Avinds of heaven 
By bogs they brush, or fogs they bear away ! 
We two, that so each other's hearts could trust — 
Why not join hearts, and leave to them the hands ? 



64 



[DEALS MADE REAL. 



If wiser than the earth, why act with earth ? 
What need that all accept the hollow tests 
And senseless forms of mere society ? 
What need — ah me," I thouf^ht, " all need indeed, 
If influen".e one would have in world or church. — 
In church ? — Must.it too crucify the soul 
To save appearances ? the body ? form ? 
Wliy Christ, He gave all these to save the soul. 
It treason is, when churches join the world 
And, courting smiles of bigotry appeased, 
And grinning hell that holds the wdiole its own, 
.Preach up the crucifixion of the soul 
To save the body, save the outward form. 
A church is Christ's no more, whose creed or court 
Represses truth that spirits long to live, 
God's tempering there, the touch that makes man 
man." 

I swore it should not be, it could not be ; 

No life could so be cleansed, — by wringing out 

The blood that fills the heart ; none pure be 

turned 
By turning pale the blush, the beauty cast 
Where fall the shadows sweet of outbound love. 
Nay, nay ; no slave should love be here, but free ! — 
Come Edith ! — then I thought, but would she 

come ? — 
Nay, not to my life. Mine must go to hers. 
But this, mine could not, — could do nothing 

there ; — 
And would not ! — Whence then had my cry 

sprung forth ? — 
If not from reason, from desire, forsooth. — 
Desire for what ? — for her ? and as she Avas ? — 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



65 



Not so; but as she might be, — ah, but whence 
Came this conceit, — this " might be " ? Whence 

but here, 
As I could mould and hold it in myself? 
Why mourned I then for what I now could own ? 
Why rage rebellious at the church, the world ? — 
Not these alone, I, I would have her change. 
These all but echoed back my own idea ; 
And I, in heeding them, but heeded self! — 
Yet self grown more than self, a greater self. 
How, greater ? — Ah, if God-like one man be. 
Then many, joining all their partial gifts, 
With wisdom broadening far and towering high, 
Not human merely, but humanity's. 
May not so far be from the Absolute ! 
The eyes of all men, they may stand for His 
To watch our ways, and keep us circumspect ; 
While God, still more in manhood than in man, 
Rules over truth in each through truth in all. 
Who terms me slave then, serving fellow-men ? 
Through serving them, I best may serve, as well, 
My godlier self! — Let general thought takt 

shape ; 
What better can incarnate sovereignty ? 
What, nobler deeds incite ? or dreams inspire ? 
The soul in reverence may kneel to them ; 
Yield all to them. — ■ So let my neighbors reign 
And I a slave may be, yet own myself; 
And deify, while I defy my pride ! 

Yes, friend, a new conversion ; call it so. 
The truth converts one oft, if he be true. 
The true man loves his own, and fights for it ; 
5 



66 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



Antl, since his own is small and God's is large, 

He often lights to lall. Yet ranks above 

Are thronged with heroes now, whose slender 

blades, 
All s\v^orn to slender causes, wielded were, 
Nor sheathed, till flying shattered from their grasp; 
Till truth, opposed, had proved itself too strong. 
Then, when they knew themselves, and knew the 

truth. 
And knew its mercy too, they loved the truth, 
And rose to be its champions, evermore. 
So now with me : rebellious though I was, 
Rebellion wrought my rescue. Truth loomed 

large ; 
And Duty rose in all her royal right, 
Till loyalty seemed grandeur. Work began. 
Thank God, we all have heads above our hearts ; 
And, if we let them reason with us well. 
They rule us for our rest. 

What Elbert wished, 
AVhen first I crossed the sea, was more than 

wrought. 
I brought back stores of book-lore, not alone ; 
But in myself a sense of others' wants ; 
For in my heart a wondrous wealth of love ; — 
Ay, wealth it was ; though, like the ore in mines. 
It only proved that that which lived had died. 
What though my life, complete with her alone, 
Seemed always rent? a weight of broken cpiartz 
That only gleamed where it had fractured been ? 
That Aveight Avas wealth that sparkled back to greet 
Each gleam of sunshine; friendship, cold, seemed 

warm 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 67 

With every southern breeze that bore from far 
The rumored sweetness of a voice renowned. 

Yes, friendship may a treasure prove e'en dead ; 

If dead enough, and hearts be still alive. 

These things tliat passed, liad made me more the 
man 

That Elbert wished, the man for all mankind : — 

No special pleader for a special class 

Whose grasping greed crowds out the general 
good ; — 

A man to plead for all fair rights for all ; 

Nor be content when tones had died away , 

That could but once repeat, then die away, 

The echoes borne to reach that shore of truth 

AVhere he alone had listened. These seemed 
worth 

Words, rarely wrought as ocean shells that 
store 

Reports unending of the ended wave. 

My plans, so broadened, striving to foltill, 

I spoke and wrote ; and so the years passed by. 

Till aiding here and there where aid was scarce, 

Anon, this cause had opened. 

Then one day, 

Came on a letter from our bureau's head ; 

Inclosed, another, sent him, so he wrote, 

"By some enthusiast, a character — 

A woman, and a woman too of mind ; 

And yet, withal, who had been strangely led, 

Through doubtful ways, he thought, toward doubt- 
ful ends. 

Till doubts had wrought reaction, — as in skies 



68 



IDEALS MADE REAL 



Clouds coursing clouds, at last, the lightning bring 
To clear them oif. And now, her vision cleared, 
Had found Avithin her soul a wish to work 
For this our cause. But see, I held the note, 
She dwelt near by; and could I visit her? 
And give my judgment ? " 

Well, that note, thus sent, — 
Would you believe ? — was Edith's. What she 

wrote, 
Weighs love against all liking to this hour. 
All thrilled with hope, yet trembling for my fate, 
I spelled out all her tale : — " her sire — his 

aims — 
And her fulfillment of them — her success — 
Earth seemed a kingdom prostrate at her feet ; 
And she, a queen ; alas, and, like a queen. 
Condemned to hold a throne that rivals watched, 
Each weakness spying out, to wrest away 
A power that could be kept by power alone. — 
How sad for woman when her hopes were based 
On practice that must all her heart conceal ; 
That must be conquering ever or be crushed ! 
At first her love for art had kept her up ; 
And for success, and for a sister dear, 
Who shared her earnings, who, while cheered the 

crowds, 
Alas, had died, and left her all alone. 
And, after that, her soul had loathed applause, 
Had found her nature so belied, misjudged. 
Her life the embodiment of hollow sound, 
And all surroundings echoing back but sound ; 
Chill admiration in the place of love. 
Her friends but flatterers, and herself unknoAvn 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



69 



"At last, her world so hard seemed grown, so 

parched, 
Without one source diffusing sympathy, — • 
She took no credit on her for her change ; 
The weakest sigh that could have heaved a breast, 
A dying breast, had cracked so dry a crust — 
She rose, one morning, sworn her soul to free ; 
That pent up love should flow in softening 

streams, 
And something human, ay, and heavenly too, 
Be imaged in the life from which it sprang. 

" And, now, for self alone she dared not work ; 
For she had learned that all life's purposes 
Are held like glasses that a soul may use 
To gather in heaven's light and flash it round 
Upon its world illumined ; or, not so, — 
If turned on self, — to but inflame and dim 
The vision it would brighten. So she now 
One only purpose knew, to pledge her gifts 
To those that most might need. She came 

to us. 
To work for aims that we so well had planned, 
To lift the poor and low." 

And then I rode. 
As fast as trains could take me ; and I wrote. 
Like one intoxicated, from the inn, 
" The bureau's agent here abides your wish ; " 
And, signing not my name, awaited thus 
The summons sure to seem more sweet than life. 
It came. I went. 

" You ? " Edith cried, " and whence ? " 



70 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



" From whence? " I said. " Each slightest spark 

of good 
Flies upward straight, and heaven returns it where 
It fires the most ? — Were surer tinder found 
Than my heart ? " 

" Why is this ? " she asked ; " the note 
Miscarry ? You get ? Would you thwart me 

then ? — 
Whose powers could aid so much ! — They wish 

no help 
From one like me ? — My heart was set on it." 

" On my cause," said I. " What, and hoped you 

not 
That, seeking it, you yet might come to me ? " 

" Why hope for this ? " she said. — " Enough to 

know 
My own work here I sought. — Why seek for 

yours ? " 

" Why, Edith," asked I, '• are not both the same ? 
What parts us now? What, like myself, though 

you 
Have learned to look on life, its vista long. 
And watch yourself alone ; lone would you be ? 
Through all these years, I, I, at least, have seen 
Not you yourself — ah that too dear had been! — 
But, like you, one, an apparition fair. 
Within the far horizon of my hopes, 
The sweet mirage before me. Now, at last, 
I know those misty outlines veiled the truth, 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



71 



It must have meant you, Edith, you were here ; 
And we should meet. Heaven surely meant it 
so." 

Her mien had changed ; yet calmly asked again, 
" But how with Grace ? T thought " — 

" Alas," I said, 
" With you, your spirit throned above its love, 
What were I but a traitor, wedding Grace ? 
This heart was yours, your dwelling-place alone. 
Nay, now I do not come to give it up, 
It opens only to an owner old. 
Plow sacred was it guarded, but for }'ou ! — 
A holy place, though there, above the shrine, 
The niche was empty. Friend, has earth seemed 

rude ? 
Some reason was there; surely, surely, some. 
We war with Providence who war with life. 
We seek to mould our own existence all. 
But life, best made, is mainly for us made. 
Each passing circumstance, a tool of heaven, 
Moves by to smooth some edge of character. 
And model manhood into better shape. 
Has nought been wrought with you ? Ah, idol 

mine. 
You living image of all hope, would God, 
Love's shrine, the empty niche, might stand com- 
plete ! " 

Then Edith leaned her face against her hand, 
And slowly came the words that seemed so dear : 
" It may be, Noruum, nuiy — I know — I feel — 
It must be earth, so roughly handling one, 
Should round experience here for changes wise. 



72 IDEALS MADE REAL. 

Yet this — it cannot be — how can it ? — nay — 
For me you come — and you ? your voice I hear ? 
No echo void, oft, oft so sweet in dreams ? — 
Nor now to waken ? — Nay I trust. You may — 
'T will stray no more — take back your wanderer." 

" My wanderer ! " I answered, when I could ; 
" Ah Edith, you but wandered as the lamb ; 
My spotless Avorldling-mediator, you ! — 
It wandered ? — yes ; it crossed a threshold chill, 
A proud cathedral })ortal ; and within 
Dwelt one, too wrapt in self's to gaze without. 
For him those arches low were large as heaven ; 
And all the sweet and sunny air about, 
When strained through stained and smoke- 
wreathed window-panes, 
Fumed red, like hell. This man, at last, spied 

you. 
He saw you shun him ; leave him. He pursued 
Out, past the doorway — ah, and found God's 

light 
So much more broad than walls named after 
Him ! " 

" And Norman," said she, " think you, evermore, 
Recalling you, the worldling could forget 
How w^alls exclusive could exclude not love ? 
Or, love rejecting, gain from all the world, 
Though brimmed Avith but applause, one draft so 

sweet ? — 
But then earth held such promises, so lured ; 
How could I know that merely sighs there were 
Could thrill me more than all its thunders could ? 
Ah, did I love } ou then, so loves he heaven 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



73 



Who owns not courage yet to leave the world. 
I might have left it never ; but, you know, 
That sister mine — Alas, why lived I left 
To envy that cold tomb, all night, all day, 
That held her only V — Norman, pardon me : 
Such woe, such loneliness, — ah, strange was it 
My soul recalled your words, — like waiting bread 
Birds find the spring snows under ? — Strange my 

lips 
Should linger over these, as over sweets 
Still tasted once again ? — or strange, anon, 
Those accents, ardent with your aims, should aim 
To fire my own to ardor ? or that life 
Should soon force forth the light that flamed 

within ; 
And, tracing far the rays that left desire, 
Find " — 

" One that had you helpt, friend ? is it so ? " 
I said; "then thanks to heaven that made us weak. 
So may a mortal pair bide, each to each, 
Both priest and partner ; like the church, their 

home ; 
For what are churches here but chosen courts 
Of One pure Spirit, moving all to love ? 
And, think you, writ or vestment, art or arch 
Can image Him, or His domain unbound ? 
Nay, trust my word, we worship Him the best, 
When two or three together, loving truth 
And one another, thus repeat, once more. 
An incarnation, imitating Christ. 

" I catch it, Norman," cried she, " the ideal ! 
Henceforth our aim be this, — the art of life. 
I saw it not before : the spirit's stage 
Is broader, so much, than the stage of earth. 



74 IDEALS MADE REAL. 

Comes on the soul now, actor, all divine, 

At play no longer ; nay but shadowing forth 

A love complete that personates a God ! 

Who thus complete alone ? Nay, hand in hand " — > 

" Thus," answered I ; " for this the whole world 

waits. 
It waits for love, — why say not love like ours ? 
When souls touch souls, they touch the springs 

of life ; 
For them the veils of sense are drawn aside. 
All burned away in radiance divine, 
The while their spirit's contact starts afresh 
The electric flash that scores new glory here, 
And liohts the lines of beino; back to God. 
Then, while existence here seems all renewed. 
Far up these lines, the souls that thus commune, 
Discern anon that sacred home on high, 
Where boundless rest that borders boundless love 
Abides in bliss of bounty absolute. — 
They find that home, the source of floods of light, 
That, issuing forth from white mysterious heights. 
Flame down and flash and burst anon in sparks 
To star the dark through all the firmament ; — 
That home the centre find of cycles wide 
Where all the wastes of nature fuse and form, 
And all the things that thought can touch take 

shape 
Until the restless wheels of matter there, 
Whirled on through road-ways worn by speeding 

years, 
At last in fatal friction fire themselves. 
And light return to light from whence it sprang. 
Through all, where souls commune Avith central 

love, 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



75 



They rest secure, awaiting birth or death ; 
The Spring to burst in blossoms blown to fall, 
Or Fall to drop the seed to spring afresh. 
They watch, nor fear whatever change evolve, — 
The splendor grand of epochs swept to waste. 
The ruin wild of times that tend to law, 
The monarch mailed whose luster dims his land's, 
The people's guns whose smoke would dim the 

throne. 
What though the cloud loom up and lightning 

rend ? 
True faith would not bemoan these forms that 

fail ; 
For forms if true are formulas of love 
That still is ardent to absorb them all. 
Let crowd the cannon then till crack the sky, 
Unroofing rage to dome content with peace. 
The more convulsion shake, and fire consume, 
The more of light 1 the more of love, set free ! 
The earlier comes an end to earthly days 
That fret our lives with flickerings vague below 
Of steadfiist light in endless d'?y above! 
So comes the doom of woe. So love comes on. 
So hope of glory gilds the gloom on high. 
While wake the good and all the ways are 

bright. — 
We too — come Edith. Christ will go with us ; 
And by-and-by the glory so shall flame 
No heavens can hold the halo ! — Edith come ; 
We join the plans above." 

But hold — I rave — 
I know, I know — no matter, so would you. — 
But find your soul's ideal, you too would find 
If common sense were reason, you would rave 



76 



IDEALS MADE REAL. 



Till you forgot that common sense could be — 
Though I forget it not. My tale is told. 
Wliy talk I more ? I know one household now 
All radiant through its mistress 1 Where she 

dwells 
Contentment sweet pervades the very air, 
And genial sympathy smiles on to make 
The whole long year one summer of delight. 



HAYDN. 



This poem was suggested b}' the tale entitled "A First 
Love," in the "Musical Sketches " of Elize Polko. Her 
authority for the narrative was the historical fact that Do- 
retta (Anne is the name that I find in the biographies) 
Keller had a sister beloved by Haydn, and who entered a 
convent. My own authority for the imagined connection 
indicated in the poem between the marriage of Haydn 
and the influence of the father and the priest, is derived 
from such passages as these, which may be found in 
every biography of the musician: "Forced to seek a 
lodging" {i. e. when a boy in Vienna), "by chance he 
met with a wig-maker, named Keller, who had often 
noticed and been delighted with the beauty of his voice 
at the Cathedral, and now offered him an asylum. This 
Haydn most gladly accepted; and Keller received him as 

a son His residence here had, however, a fatal 

influence on his after iife Keller had two daugh- 
ters ; his Avife and himself soon began to think of uniting 
the young musician to one of them ; and even ventured 

to name the subject to Haydn He did not forget 

his provnise to his old friend Keller, of marrying his 
daughter Anne. But he soon found that she .... had 
.... a mania for priests and nuns. .... He was him- 
self incessantly annoyed and interrupted in his studies by 
their clamorous conversation At length he sepa- 
rated from his wife, Avhom, however, he always, in pecu- 
niary concerns, treated Avith perfect honor." — Biot/iriph- 
ical Dictionary of Musicians, 2 vols., London, 1827. 

Such facts, taken in connection with the well-known 
piety of Haydn, are a sufficient warrant, as I think, for 
my supposing that " priests and nuns " who so annoyed 
him had had something to do with drawing that member 
of the family whom he loved into a convent. In the poem 
I have endeavored to bring the personality of the musi- 
cian before the mind of the reader by using the name 
Haydn, rather than his baptismal name, Joseph. 



HAYDN. 



Hark, sister ! hear we not the vesper hymn ? 
And is it not the hymn that Haydn wrote ? 
May not we Hft the window ? Rob we God, 
If, while the praise they send is passing by, 
Some air, made sweeter, tarry here with us ? 

There, there — it dies away. — Why say men 

" dies ? " — 
Because it lived ? — Ay, ay, my body here. 
Because it moves and tlirobs and tells of thought 
And wakens thought in others, thus you know 
The body lives. And music, while it sounds, 
Does it not move and throb and tell of thought 
And waken thought in others ? — Then it dies. — 
But ah, the music, it has never sinned, 
Has never known a wish save that of Heaven, 
And need not linger long here. Yet to eyes 
That scan eternity, time cannot be 
A measure gauging vital force ; nay, nay : 
Then heavenly lightning lived a weaker thing 
Than earthly smoke. — Ah sister, I have thought 
If there may rise, high up in halls of Heaven, 
Sweet echoes of our earthly lives, re-lived 
Yet not as here on earth, there too may rise 
Of earthly music echoes just as real. 



82 



IIAYDX. 



At least my Haydn's holds a life breathed in, — 
His very soul. Each sound all sentient is 
To make one thrill, as though a power should come 
And clasp, with hands below these fleshly robes, 
And touch, for once, as spirits do, the heart. 
They woo one as a god might, owning heaven. 

Why should I not talk so ? Go bid the flowers 
Keep back their perfume ; then, perchance, may 

souls. 
All sweet in bloom of love, keep back sweet words. 
I love him. — Shrink not, sister. Hear you 

must. — 
And say not I am weak. Should not I grow 
Far weaker, holding in a love so strong ? 

For years he lived there in my father's house, 
My elder brother and my lover too, 
My helper, and my hero ; all my youth, 
Was one bright dawn about that sunny face. 
Four years my senior was he ; yet, withal. 
So delicate in blunt and boyish ways, 
So young in all things save in being kind. 
He seemed more near to me. Ere it I knew. 
In bud of girlhood even, he had pluck'd 
My blushing love, to wear it on his heart ; 
And all my life took root where grew his soul. 

Once I remember now our strolling far 
That valley through, whose borders unannounced 
Upheave to a sudden hill the church-yard low. 
The time of year it was when nature seems 
In mood most motherly, with every breath 
Held in a mild suspense above a world 



83 



Of just born babyhood, when tiny leaves, 
Like infant hands, do stretch to drain warm dews 
From palpitating winds, and when small brooks 
Do babble much, birds chirp, lambs bleat, and 

then, 
While all around is one sweet nursery, 
Not strange it seems that men ape childhood too, 
And lisp — ah me ! — minutest syllables, 
Yet still too coarse for love's ethereal sense ! 

As was her wont, at that time with us walked 
Doretta fair, my sister, such an elf! 
My pride and Haydn's pet, with merry tones 
To ring, Avhen all would wax too pensive there, 
Like bells that homeward lure the wind-blown 

bees. 
Our flighty fancies bringing back to earth. 

But Haydn liked this not, would ward it off. 
And turn her chafing overcharge of nerve 
From tongue to foot, with " Here, Doretta, imp ! 
You cannot climb the ledge,'' or " leap the 

brook," 
Or " find the flowers ; " — then bending down to 

me, 
" T do abhor our German prudery. 
We two should walk alone, or else have four, 
Or six. When two agree they make a match. 
A third is but a wedge with which to split 
The two apart." 

And once he paused with me ; 
And while Doretta linger'd, hid from view. 
We two sat languidly upon the turf. 
*' Few feel like springing," he exclaimed, " in 

;pr] 



sprinof ! — 



84 HAYDN. 

And yet may be, our lives spring on like limbs 
That first draAv back and down, and then leap 

up. 
To feel relaxed, perhaps, prepares one best 
To leap the tests that hedge the coming year ; 
First action, then reaction — eh, not so ? — 
And think — The thing is law — The same with 

souls : 
They stoop, then rise ; they kneel, then know of 

heaven. — 
And say, Janett, whenever comes in view 
An aim sublime, to make one proud, so proud. 
Say, should he not do thus ? " — 

" Ha I " lau'jhed a voice ; 
And quick, Doretta's curls shook down a shade 
Between his face and mine. She smooth'd his 

brow ; 
And with a wreath of heart's-ease crown'd it 

then. 
" There, there, my sweet heart, be at ease," she 

• cried. 

" You take my head then for my heart," he said. 
"Nay, nay," she answered, "nay — Avould crown 

them both ; 
Your music with your muse ; your head, the 

home ; 
The mistress there, your heart." 

" With all one's heart 
But mistress of his head, would love gain much? " 
He asked. , 

" Why yes — immortal fame," she said ; 
" Not so ? '^ 

" And do you think," he ask'd, " that this 
Could set the heart at ease ? " Then, mus' 



85 



" Well well ; perhaps no hearts, if all at ease, 
Can ever hold an earnest of renown. 
High worth is earn'd through effort. Ease alone 
May weaken life, like sweetmeats served ere 

meats, 
To surfeit appetite before it acts." 

" But look," he added, starting suddenly ; 

" The sun has touched the earth. See how its 

disk. 
Red hot there, steams against the river chill ! 
We home must go." With this we all turned 

back, 
Walked home together ; nor a chance was given 
For him to say the thing he would have said. 

Yet, sister, I have lately often thought 
His lips so closed, were making ready then, 
When came Doretta there, to breathe to me 
What might have roused, like resurrection time, 
As righteously as blasts from Gabriel's trump, 
Have open'd for me here a life of love. 

Nay, do not bid me cease. I must confess. 

It is not discontentment with my lot. 

My heart, it suffocates. This feeling here, 

It stifles me. I think that one might die, 

Forbidden speech. Ah, friend, had you a babe, 

A little puny thing that needed air, 

And nursing too ; and now and then a kiss, 

A mother's kiss to quiet it ; and arms. 

Warm arms to wrap, and rock it so to sleep ; 

Would you deny it these ? And yet there lives 

A far more tender babe that God calls love ; 



86 HAYDX. 

And when He sends it, why, we mortals here, — 
I Avould not say we grudge the kiss, the clasp, — 
We grudge the little heavenling even air. 
The tears will come. It makes me weep to think 
Of this poor gentle babe, this heir of heaven, 
So wronged because men live ashamed of it. 
Ah no, not strange, earth knows but little joy 
While all so little dare of love to speak. 
For once (I ask no more) you must permit 
That I should nurse this stranger, give it air, 
Ay, ay, and food, if need be ; let it grow. 
God's child alone, I have no fear of it. 

Long after that, our Haydn found no chance 
With me to speak ; and this, I know not why. 
My fiither — I could never solve it why 
My father aught surmised : we walked alone, 
Doretta, Haydn, I — my father though 
From this time seemed less trustful ; not that he 
Less loved his favorite, Haydn ; but we both 
Were still so young And he, poor man, who 

earned 
With all his toil not much, had formed a plan ; 
(As one might form a rosary, stringing beads. 
Then spending all his hours in counting them ; ) 
Where hung bright hopes, but strung on flimsy 

thread, — 
Mere lint, brushed off a worldling's flattery, 
That I much wealth should wed. So, like a gem 
For future pride, he locked me up in school. 

And there strange fiices drove my lonely thoughts 
Back into memory for companionship : 
And there imagination, moved anon 



HAYDN. 87 

To fill the void love found in earth about, 
Invoking fancies where it failed in facts, 
Beheld an earth about that seemed bewitched. 

If Haydn present had my love called forth, 
Away, and thus conjured (how could I help?) 
He call'd forth worship. You remember, friend, 
Those heroes grand of Egypt seemed not gods 
Till all were dead, and veiled from mortal eyes. 
And so with Haydn, and his world it was 
These never filled with glory had appeared 
Till now, when shut from me. Each slightest 

hint 
Of home, that made me think this home was his. 
Made all recalled as bright as heaven itself; — 
Yes, yes, though heaven so very bright must 

be ! — 
Wliy, even here, the past is bright ; and there, 
Up there, we faith shall have, such perfect faith 
We cannot longer fear the future. No : 
As joyous shall it loom as all the past : 
And then with all things bright, behind, before. 
Where could a place for gloom be ? Even here. 
Could gloom be found if only men had fiiith ? 

A year pass'd over me. Can I forget 
That wondrous summer day that set me free ? 
At first, as though no soul at all I had, 
A part alone I seemed of wide, wide air. 
The while all things had souls. The very earth, 
My fellow, seemed to breathe ! its pulse to throb 
Through every trembling bush ! its heart to heave 
Where swayed, like living lungs, the wooded 
hills ! 



00 HAYDN. 

And then, this great life broke in many lives, 
All one through sympathy. In lieu of clouds 
The gusty breeze caught up the twittering lark 
And shook the laughter out his nervous sides 
Till all that heard did shake, the littlest leaves 
Abuzz on trees about, like bees that swarm. 
Then reverence hush'd the whole, while, greeting 

me, 
Our dear church spire appeared to mount the hill, 
Our home to reach around a slow-turn'd rock, — 
And all stood still with Haydn ! Hot my cheek 
Felt then Doretta's kiss ; my father's then ; 
And then bewildered, as from out a dream, 
At last I woke. 

And what a dawn was that 1 
As if the sun had draAvn the earth to itself, 

1 dwelt in central light; and heaven, high 

heaven — 
Could feel some raj^s, perhaps, was touch'd by them, 
At star-points in the sky, but owned no more. 

Doretta had developt much : so fair, 
In early flush of ripen'd maidenhood, 
I did not wonder while I watched his eyes. 
My Haydn's eyes, that he could crave the fruit. 
And intimate they Avere. Right merrily 
Through all the house I heard their voices chime. 
But me our Haydn did not seem to know ; 
So quiet was he, and reserved with me. 
Yet all my heart Avould flutter like a bird's 
At his approach : my will fly up and off; 
And, as if poised in air and not in me, 
Leave words and ways so weak without control, 
Remaining fixed as though I prized him not. 



HAYDN. 89 

But this he little mark'd. Doretta now 

Had dimm'd, perhaps, the light between us there. 

Then, too, within the year, still subtler charms 

Had cast their spells about him : work had come. 

He needed now no more to earn his bread 

By joining oft us gay wig-makers young. 

Us sisters busied with our father's tasks. 

The church that had dismiss'd him when from 

change 
It could not keep that voice who?e tones of yore 
Had touch'd my father so that heart and house 
Had both sprung open wide, a home to give 
The choir-boy poor, — the church had call'd him 

back 
To aid again, but in the orchestra, 
The fresher voices of his younger mates. 
With this had pupils fill'd his vacant hours ; 
And, far away, an organ, play'd at Mass, 
Seem'd all his rest on Sundays. Thus cheer'd on, 
His brighten'd prospects had renew'd the charms 
Of music rivaling all things else with him. 
Full often, could Ave watch him, listless, gaze, 
Ay, even toward Doretta's voice and form ; 
Then turn, like one bewilder'd by a dream 
Fair closing every sense to all besides. 
And seek his small bare attic where anon, 
For hours together, pausing not for aught, 
The ringing strings within his harpsichord 
Would seem to call toward form that formless force 
Enrapturing so his spirit. When his moods 
Would note Doretta not, nor waiting meals, 
Nor sunset hues, nor moonlight at its full, 
Nor solemn striking of the midnight bell. 
What could I think that he could care for me. 



90 



At last his illness came. How pale he lay ! 
We fear'd for him, lest life should slip its net : 
The fleshly cords seem'd worn to film so thin ! 
But how his soul would shine through them ! Its 

light, 
I would not say that it could gladden me, 
Yet — strange is it ? — while seated near his side, 
The fresh air fanning toward him, air his lungs 
Were all too weak to draw there for themselves, 
For that so gentle, babelike sufferer, 
I lost all fear, and true to womanhood, 
I loved him more for low and helpless sighs 
Than ever I had loved him for his strength. 

How oft I thank'd the Power that gave me power 
To think and do for him what he could not. 
I knelt : I gave my body to his soul : 
Brain, hands and all tilings would I yield to him. 
And were they not paid back ? — His sweet, 

sweet heart. 
Each slightest beat of it, I felt it thrill 
Through all my veins, twice dear since serving 

two. 
And this was love ! You know the Master's 

words. 
That they alone who lose it find their life. 
'T is true. No soul can feel full consciousness 
Of full existence till it really love. 
And yield its own to serve another's life. 
" To serve Christ's," say you ? — Ay, and part of 

that. 
By Christ's humanity, is serving man. 
I speak a law of life, a truth of God : 
To heaven I dare as little limit it, 



HAYDX. 01 

As here, to earth : whatever be his sphere, 
One knows not Hfe therein until he love. 

True love has life eternal, infinite. 
Complete within itself, and craving naught, 
It needs no future far, nor outlet vast. 
Nor aught to feel or touch in time or space. 
A sense witliin, itself its own reward, 
It waits not on return. For it, more blest 
To love it is, than be loved ; to be God, 
Than be a man. 

At least, my love bless'd me 
Much more than Haydn ; for with all it longed 
And all it toiled, Doretta lived the one 
Who seemed to best succeed in aiding him. 
She more had dwelt at home, knew household 

ways ; 
And I was but a bungler, knew them not. 
And so to me was mainly left the task, 
To fan him while he slept. But, when he woke, 
Although his lips would move with no complaint, 
Nor eyes would glance for other than myself, 
I could not do for him as sister could. 
For she would turn his pillow, tell him tales, 
Bring books and pictures, just what pleas'd him 

most. 
But ah, to me those patient lips and eyes 
Such holy things appeared ! My d'eeds were 

hush'd : 
I did not dare disturb the silence there. 
It could not all have been mere selfishness ; 
Yet I was all content to look at him. 

And ray inaptitude my sister knew. 

And partly since she knew what I did not, 



02 HAYDN. 

And partly since she loved as well as I, 

Wlien once she heard liini waking, she would come 

And by him sit till fast asleep again ; 

And then, when little left for me to do, 

Then only would she leave me there alone. 

At times then would I lean above his couch, 
And grieve to think that I coidd do no more ; 
At times would rise in thankfulness that God 
Would let me do so much. A thought like this 
Perhaps He bent to bless. I learned to think 
That even though I might not have her art, 
Doretta's art, that I at least might have 
As much, perhaps, as guardian angels have, 
Without our hands or voices, keeping watch 
In spirit only. Still, when sister came, 
The thought would come that, if those souls 

unseen 
Could envy, sometimes they might envy men. 

How hard I strove against this jealousy : 

Would plead with Mary, and would kneel to 

Christ ; 
And seek the priestly father and confess 
The feeling all to him. Nor would he chide 
One half as much as I would chide myself. 
How would he shame me that I dared to love 
" A man vvho had not ask'd me for my love ! 
A man who loved my sister and not me ! " - — 
Then bid me count my beads for hours and hours : 
A week or more I slept not, counting them ; 
But, while my thought was fixt but on the sin, 
It seem'd my sin but grew. 

It grew in fact, 



HAYDN. 9o 

For all ! existence looms to greet the soul 
But like a mirror, where to him that hath 
Is given more anon of what he hath : 
One smiles at earth, it gives him back a smile ; 
He frowns, it gives a frown ; he looks with love, 
He finds love ; but with sin, and all is sin. — 
Alas, that men should think one secret fault 
Can hide itself. Their sin shall find them out. 
Before, behind, from every (Quarter flash 
Their moods reflected. Let them tell the tale. 
Nay, let them whisper, glance, or shrug one hint 
Of what they find in earth about, and lo ! 
In this, their tale of it, earth reads their own. 

I wander much. There came a change at last. 
Our charge was better ; and one afternoon. 
Ere scarce 1 knew that he awake could be. 
Upon my cheeks arose a burning heat, 
While, past a mist of tears that came, there 

dawn'd 
The light that waited in his clear, blue eye. 

" Janett," he murmured then, " Janett, my 

friend — 
And what? — You weep for me? I shall not 

die. — 
Nay, do not rise, nor call Doretta yet. 
Hist, hist ; — nor let her hear us. Wliy is this, 
That you stay never with me Avhen I wake ? 

" You think you ' cannot do for me ' ? — do 

what? 
And have I ask'd you anything to do ? — 
I pray you stay ; do not do anything, — 



94 HAYDX. 

What pretty cuffs ! — Tlioi'e, there : it still shall 

lie, 
The little hand : I like to look at it. — 
VVho said that I Avish'd books, and prints, and 

tales. 
And bustlings all about ? — "Wlio told you this ? — 
Your sister ? — She, a good, kind nurse has been : 
And you, you too, a good, kind nurse liave been. 
Ah think you I have never lain awake, 
Nor known the long nights you have watch'd with 

me ? — 

" What say ? — have ' done but duty ' ? — Say not 

so. 
A fi'iend most pleases when, forgetting due. 
He seems to do his pleasure ; while a foe, — 
Who does not shrink to feel one near enough 
To freeze him with a chill though duteous touch? 
Mere duty forms the body part of love : 
Let love be present, and this body seems 
The fitting vestment of a finer life : 
Let love be absent, 't is a hideous corpse ! 
Janett, I crave the life, I crave the soul : 
Why at me rattle then a skeleton ? 

" I ' mean vour sister ' ? Why ? — who named 

her ? — I ? — 
Name her, did I, as being duteous ? — 
' Who mean I, then ' ? — You little fluttering 

bird ! 
Suppose you were some actual little bird, 
How told you then whence came or whither went 
The wind that rufl'd your feathers ? — Do you 

know, 



haydS. 95 

You women always will match thoughts to things ? 
You chat as birds chirp, when their mates grow 

bright : 
You love when comes a look that smiles on you. 
We men are more creative. We love love, 
Our own ideal long before aught real : 
Our halo of young fancy circles naught 
Save empty sky far off. — And yet those rays 
Fit like a crown, at last, about the face 
That fortune drives between our goal and us ! 

" Still, all may fail of truth ; none fail like 

those 
Most prone to deem themselves infallible ; 
None more than men who, fallible in proof, 
Yet flout, when fails anon, a woman's guess. — 
And your guess ? — it went right. I thought of 

her, 
Your sister. We both honor her, and much. 
And yet I fear her, lest her will so strong 
Should overmatch by aught your strength of will. 
For God has given you your own moods, friend ; 
And are you not responsible for them ? 
And if you yield them up too readily, 
Not meaning wrong, yet may you not mistake ? 
Our lives, remember, are not sounding-boards. 
Not sense.less things, resounding for a world 
That nothing new can note in what we o-ive. 
If one but echo back some other's wish. 
Think you God's message through his own ful- 
filled ? 
Yet, — Nay, I would not chide ; I caution you. 
Wit heeds a hint ; 't is folly questions it. 



9() HAYDX. 

*' And so you thought I wished my pillow turned, 
And books, and tales, and bustlings all about ? 
Does not the world, then, worry life enough, — 
That one should crave that more should worry 

him ? 
You must have thought that exercise I lacked. 
Some nervous mothers — bless them ! — shake 

their babes. 
I never deemed it wise ; oh no — am sure 
The friction frets the temper of the child. — 
Not natural, you see : God never shakes 
The ground with earthquakes when He wishes 

spring. 
Life from its germs is driven not, but drawn 
By still, bright warmth. Janett but look at me. 
Too weak am I now to be driven to life ; 
Nay, nay, but must be drawn. — And ah ! could 

tell 
AVhere orbs there are as bright as suns could be — 
Nay, do not blush nor turn that face away. 
You dream, aha, that I wish sunset ? — what ? — 
The colors come right pretty, but — there, there — 

" What say ? — I dare not fiice you now ? — 

Those eyes. 
Too bright, are they ? or loving ? Love, like God, 
So brightly dear is it, that lives like ours. 
Poor vapory lives, mere dews before the dawn, 
Dare not to face it lest we melt away ? — • 
Then be it so. Then look, Janett, I dare ! 
Am I not yours ? Should you not use your 

own ? — 
Ay, darling, draw me all within yourself." • 



HAYDN. 97 

Then, while he spoke with hands there clasping 

mine, 
And eyes that mine had tired with so much light 
Their lids, all weak, were vext to feeble tears, 
Doretta came. 

But startled, seeing us. 
She only smiled ; said, " Haydn, what ! awake ? — 
And you, Janett? — You good have been, so good ; 
Nor called me ; no. How very kind in you ! 
Why, after all, some little training thus 
Might make you hke, perhaps, to be a nurse, — 
Or housekeeper. — To-day, how wrecked it looked, 
Your room ! Our father just now came from 

there ; 
So vexed, you know." 

I flushed, and thought, at least. 
That she had not been kind to speak of it. 
And could have told her so, but checked the 

words. 
And went my way ; and sought my father first. 
And told him what the cause had been ; and then 
I sought my room, and prayed that I might know 
If it Avere best to tell my father too 
Of Haydn's love ; or Haydn tell of mine ; 
And if he loved me still, since sister's words. 
If only he could know my soul in truth, 
I felt that I could suffer all things then ; 
Could die, if so the veils about my heart 
Withdrawn could be, and show him Iioav I loved. 
Alas, I did not know then, had not learn'd. 
That love may more endure than even death. 

The sunset brought Doretta to my room ; 
And she began, and chided me, and said, 



98 HAYDN. 

" How dared you talk ! and what did Haydn 

say ? — 
He lies so ill, with fever high, so high. 
He could but rave. How dared you lead him 

on ? 
He worse may grow, — Who knows, Janet t ? — 

may die ; 
And all the cause of all your nursing be ! — 
When will you learn to learn what you know 

not?" 

And then she told me such a long, sad tale. 
Of how much store she placed upon his life ; 
And how they two had thought the self-same 

things : 
She knew the closest chamber in his soul, 
And what key could unlock it. Last, she named 
First one and then another of our friends. 
Whom surely she could not love so ; — no, no. 

Then sighed she, " Ah Janett, had you explored 
The world about, its lonely, barren wastes, 
And found one little nook ; and had you work'd 
And till'd it well, and form'd a garden there ; 
And had you watch'd the })lantlets grow until 
All dainty bowers bent over you with shade, 
All sweet with fairest buds and fondest birds. 
What could you think of one who came and strlpt 
Your life of this, the thing that so you prized ? — 
Alas, and think of me, if any power 
Should wrest from me my Haydn, sAveetest soil 
Where spring all hopes that shelter lonely hours, 
And make it dear for life to see and hear, — 
What could J think of it ? Though you, Janett, 



HAYDN. 



99 



You have not known and tired of many men. 
You have not search'd, as I have, through the 
world " — 

" Nay, sister," said I, " I have not." 

Then she — 
" Quite right : and cannot yet know love, true 

love. 
You close at school were kept : and hard it was, 
And harder still that you to-day must wait, 
As I have done, — at your age too. But yet 
Right love is ripe love. Life must be exposed 
To sun and storm, and frost and bruising too : 
The fruit grows mellow by and by alone.'* 

" Why, dear," said I, " I think that I can love ! 
You know what Haydn sings, — that maids, like 

flowers. 
Are sweetest, pluck'd when in the bud ? " 

" There now, 
You always will be quoting him ! " she cried, — 
" Because a man, ah yes, your first man-friend ! 
Yet, not compared by you Avith other men. 
How know you hi in, what sort of man he is ? — 
Girls unsophisticated are like bees : 
They buzz for all, and yet sip all their sweets 
From the first flowery lips that open to them." 

" Nay," answer'd T, " I like him not for that, — 
Because a man ! " 

" What ? — not for that ? " she said : 
" Aha, have shrewder plans ? — I know, I know 
It would be well if you, or I, could feel 
That it were fixt, about our wedded life ; 



100 



HAYDN. 



So many ifs and ifs, it vexes one ; 
It would be well if we were done with them. 
Such trusting natures have we, we poor girls ; 
Weak parasites, at best, each tall stout man 
Seems just the thing we ought to cling upon. 
But, dear, I think that half these trunks give 

way : — 
The wonder is we dare to cling at all ! " 

" But Haydn," said I, " Haydn " — 

" As for him," 
She sigh'd, " well, he may be not trustless all ; 
Yet if he be or be not, how know you 
Who know not human nature, nor have learn'd 
To study it and thus find out the truth. 
The world grows grain and chaff". Sift out the 

first 
And cultivate, perchance some gain may come, — 
So too with worldly friendship." 

" But," said I, 
" If you should change yourself who change your 

friend, 
Or change but his relations to yourself. 
Or, by mistake, some ill trait cultivate ; 
Or, some way, make a new, strange man of 

him ? " — 

" Why I should till," she said, " what pleases me ; 
And with what pleases me preserve my love." 

" And I," replied I, " not for future gain, 
For what he may become, would prize my friend ; 
But love the thing he is ; nor wish him changed. 
1 would not dare disturb for aught besides 



IIAYDN. 1 01 

The poise of traits composing sympathy 

That, as it is, so balances desire. 

Ah, did I chiefly prize the possible. 

Or profitable, where were present joy ? — 

Nay, nay, that love I which I find possess'd." 

" Pray, how much can you find possess'd ? " she 
ask'd. 

" Enough to love," I said. 

'• What holds enough 
For that ? " she ask'd again. 

I answer'd her, — 
" Enough to make his presence seem a boon ; 
Enough to make his purpose a behest ; 
Enough to feel an impulse seeking him, 
And, finding him, a consciousness of all." 

" ' A consciousness of all,' is vague," she said. 
" I ask for reasons and you rave alone. 
This very vagueness while you answer me, 
It proves how immature in love you are." 

" Ah dear," replied I, "higher love there is, — 
A love of God, a love all worshipful ; 
And that love should you ask me to define, 
I mio;lit an answer vaguer still give back. 
The finite only can be well defined." 

" The finite ! " she repeated ; then exclaim'd : 
" Oh, worship, wish you ? — well, we then must 

find 
An idol ! — there, that golden one, — there now. — 
Foroive the simile. — You know his choice : 



102 



besides 

The baron too could fall and worship you ; 
So father says. Two idols could you have, — 
Your home a very temple ; only, dear, 
Be not so backward. Give but me your chance — 
These men, they all present their best to you. 
You get the diamonds as if you were noon : 
And I, I get the coals. — But let me touch, 
They either burn or else they blacken me." 

She said, then left abruptly. — Strange it was. 
With what abhorrence strange I shrank from her 
While si)eaking thus. Not selfish seemed she all, 
But so insensible ; and these, our tastes. 
These dainty despots of desire, our tastes, 
The worst of tyrants are ; nor brook offense. 
I well-nigh hated her. Yet minded thus, 
While musing o'er her nature, all so hard — 
Have not you noticed at the arsenal, 
At times, when moved to mark grim helmets 

there, 
All suddenly, upon the polish'd brasS 
A wondrous brightness ? then, in purest depths, 
Your own face hideous render'd ? So with me : 
Amid her harsher traits that there appeared, 
Shone soon the brighter metal : out of it, 
Lecr'd back to greet my gaze my hideous self ! — 
I, I it seemed, I stood the selfish one. — 
Had I regarded her, my father's wish. 
The baron's choice ? — I could but answer, no ; 
None saving Haydn. 

Then I ask'd again. 
Could this be true, the thing my sister said, -^ 



HAYDN. 103 

Could aught so sweet as Haydn's love exude 
From moods, , all mushroom'd by disease? I 

thought 
How marvelously thronged with strangest shapes 
Loomed up deep halls of fancy, lighted through 
By fires of fever ; how, with trust complete, 
Would weakness lean on all beside itself. 
And soon I blamed my heart for daring there 
To lure his poor, weak, crazed confession on ; 
And then I flush'd, and broke in passionate sobs. 
To think Doretta dared to hint such things. 
Three days my woes alternated, and then 
I went to my confessor for relief. 

" Well, child," he said, " love troubles you again ? 
The rest of us poor mortals here, we fret 
Because we have too little of it, you 
Because too much. Of course all girls are prone, 
Young girls, to deem their own love great and 

grand ; 
But you, my child, find yours an elephant : 
It taxes all your powers to get it food ; 
Yet nothing does except to tramp on you. 
Now tell me, think you God it is, or man, 
Who makes our earthly love so troublesome ? " 

" Why man," I said, '' of course." 

" Of course," he said ; 
" Then think you not it might be wise to get 
Some less of man in you, and more of God ? — 
How fares it with your prayers ? " 

" But yet," I urged, 
" It scarcely seems my fault, this woe of mine." 



1 04 HAYDN. 

" Well, let us know," lie answered, "weigh the 

sides : , 

Here, three wills ; there, but one ; now, which 

should yield ? " 

" Not so," I said ; " There two, — my own and 

Haydn's ; 
Besides, the other three have no such love." 

''No love?" he said. "Is that a Christian 

mood ? 
A modest, humble mood? — ' Have no such love ! * 
How test we love, my child ? It seems to me 
That love, like light, is tested by its rays. 
Christ's crown of royalty the halo is. 
Self-sacrifice marks heaven's true heraldry. 
Wlierever God's, the strong must serve the weak ; 
The mother yields her powers to bless the babe ; 
The man his own, for her ; and Christ, for all. 
Ah, child, if you were strong ! had love like 

theirs ! " 

I sighed, "How can one sure be whom to serve?" 

"Well, put it thus: — ■ your own wish ? or your 

sire's ? — 
How reads the decalogue ? " 

" But," answer'd I, 
" It seems as though some higher power there 

were 
That one should first obey, some power like God." 

" Yes, child," he said, " there is, of course, the 
Church : 



IIAYDN. 



105 



Of course, of course." 

" Who is the Church ? " I ask'd. 

And then he hiugh'd : " Who ? — What a ques- 
tion, child ! — 

Why, read your prayer-book. Why, the Church, 
of course, 

Speaks through its ministers." 

'' If you speak then," 

Inquired I, trenibhng, — " give advice to us, 

Is that the last resort ? — must one obey ? " 

" Well, that depends," he said ; — " but, dear me, 

child, 
You must not think us bears ! We growl at 

times 
In sermons, eh ? — But then, dear me, dear me. 
We would not eat our flock up, little lamb ! — 
Come," added he, " come, now ; enough of this ; 
How fares it with your prayers ? " 

Soon after that, 
One day, while troubled much, I chanced to meet 
My Haydn, half restored, outside his room. 
For once, he sat alone ; and, seeing me, — 
" Why friend, what accident is this ? " he said : 
" And tears, too, tears ? — Tell now, what sullen 

storm 
Has left such heavy drops ? Did not it know 
That these, so tender eyes, might droop ? if 

droop, 
What rare views they might close to some one 

here ? — 
What can have happen'd ? 

" Why not speak to me ? — 
You seem the very statue of yourself. — 



106 HAYDN. 

Why, what has chill'd you so ? — Not I ? — Not 

I? — 
Janett, I know, if I were cold to you, 
A certain rosy face with opening lips 
Could come with power to bring me summer air, 
Dispelling sweetly my most wintry wish, 
Despite myself! — Why will you trust me not?" 

And then I spoke to him. I hinted first • 

My moods were odd ; not moods for him to mind. 

" Odd," answer'd he, '' I knew a fiimily 
Wliere all the children grew so very odd, — 
Like fruit when hard to touch and sour to taste, 
Not ripe nor mellow. Too much spring had they. 
And not enough of summer in their home. — 
I know that you are not so very odd 
That you would keep apart from one you love. 
And I, can I not hope that I am one V " 

At these words then (how could I help myself?) 
My heart-gates sprang wide open ; emptied all. 
The whole the priest had told me of my sin ; 
And how we should not talk together more. 

How wild it made him ! Never had I seen 

One shaken so. His anger frighten'd me. 

" This crafty priest," he said, " you ask'd of 

God: 
He answer'd you about the Church, 'of course,' 
And of the Church about the priests, ' of course,* 
And of the priests about himself, ' of course.* 
I tell you this is cursed selfishness ; 
I tell you it is downright sacrilege ! — 



HAYDN. 107 

To strain the thunders of the Infinite 

Down through that sieve, his windpipe, dribbling 

out, 
' I deal the voice of God, I, I, the priest ! ' " 

" How dare you, Haydn," cried I, " Haydn, how " — 

" How dare ? " he cried out, '' dare ? Am I a dog, 
A dog or woman cringing to a man, 
Because of kicks or curses ? " 

" Nay," I sobb'd, 
" I kneel before his office, not to him." 

" Poor girl," he said, " forgive me — stop — I 

beg — 
What ? can you think that I would make you 

weep ? 
Not, darling, not of you, I meant to speak, 
But of the system." 

" System," I replied ; 
" Why, Haydn, are you not a Christian, then ? " 

" And wherefore not ? " he asked. 

'• Because," I said, 
" You reverence not the Church." 

" But not of that," 
He answer'd, " of the priests ; of them I spoke." 

" And yet," I said, " the priests have been or- 
dain 'd — 
No reverence, you, for ministers of God ? " 

" Of God," he muttered, — " yes, when that they 
are. 



108 HAYDN. 

I reverence the princeship ; not the prince 

His regal robes forsaking, and his throne, 

To lower his aims and slave it with his serfs." 

" What mean you now ? " I asked. 

" I mean that priests 
Are not ordain'd to work in eveiy sphere. 
A prince dispenses, does not mine his gold. 
A priest administers the truth reveal'd. 
What sanctions him to mine unfathom'd depths 
Of God's infinity ; and bring to light 
Laws not reveal'd, and govern men through them ? 
Your priest who tampers so with social life, 
What warrant holds he, human or divine ? 
Whatever move him, serving thus your sire, 
Or deeming gifts like those he fancies mine. 
Might worthier prove, devoted to the Church, 
Is he in this our final arbiter? — 
Have I no judgment? — Are not you of age ? 
Janett, but heed me ; let no power, I beg. 
Avail to sunder us. Heaven hears my words. 
I fear a plot to make your will so crushed, 
(God save you if you yield) a merest truck 
To bear some weight of meanness on to ill." 

" But I," I said, I craved the priest's advice." 

*' He handled the occasion," answer'd he. 
" I would not dare to mould another thus. 
Nay, though I knew that I could model thence 
The best shaped manhood of my mind's ideal. 
AVho knows? — My own ideal, my wisest aim, 
May tempt astray ; may others tempt astray. 
If I be made one soul to answer for, 



HAYDN. 109 

And make myself responsible for two, 

I may be doubly damn'd. 'T is sacrilege, — 

Self-will, so moved to manage other wills ; 

As though we men Avere puppets of a show, 

Not spirits, restless and irresolute, 

Poised on a point between the right and wrong 

From which a breath may launch for heaven or 

hell. — 
You dare submit to this impiety ? " 

" But," ask'd I, " ought not one to heed advice ? '* 

"Advice?" he answer'd. "What? — is this 

the ground 
On which these base authority ? — Nay, nay. 
Base where they may, their ground is willfulness. 
Years since invested ; not disrobed, because 
Age awes revolt. Should your will yield to 

theirs ? — 
Think you God gives to strength of will the right 
To say what is right? Willfulness is sin. 
If one obey it, how can he be sure . 
That he obeys not rin ? " 

" They may have will," 
I said, " but you forget ; the priests are wise." 

" About what life ? " he cried. " In other men 
Experience signs the warrant for advice. 
But in. the priest — what knows he real of life ? — 
Naught, naught ; and if he give you his advice 
He gives you naught, or else he gives you 

whims ; — 
A bachelor teaching mothers of their babes ! 
Or matrons how to guide their grown-up girls ! 



110 HAYDN. 

Alas, their counsels ignorant, partial, false, 
Repel towai'd infidelity the wise ; 
And half of those they tempt to follow them 
Make hypocrites or hypochondriacs." 

" Nay," said I firmly, '• I must hear no more." 

" Then have they really separated us ? " 
He ask'd. 

And I, " What mean 3 ou ? " 

" Are you then 
My friend or not ? " he went on, mournfully. 

" What is a friend ? " I ask'd. 

" What else," he said, 
" But, in the world, where all misjudge one so, 
A soul to whom one dares to speak the truth ? " 

" Ah, Haydn," ask'd I, " must we speak all 
truth ? 

"Why not?" he said, *'is sin less sin when 

hid ? — 
Is not the penitent a sinner frank. 
The hypocrite a sinner not so frank ? " — 

" But yet," protested I, " the truth may harm." 

" How so?" he asked. " If one show naked sin, — 
AVho knows ? — it then may shame men from 

the sin. 
And could the naked good accomplish more ? 
Must not we Christians here confess our fixults ? 
Why should Ave not ? Has wrong such lovely 

smiles, 



HAYDN. Ill 

Such loving tones, that men should long for it ? 
The harm is in the lie that masks the sin." 

" And yet," I urged, " the young ? the preju- 
diced " — 

" For their sake," said he. " wisdom may be wise 
In what it screens from folly. — Yet you know 
The crime of Socrates, — ' corrupting youth ' ? 
The talc is old: this lying world hates truth. 
Heed not the world. Ere that speak out and 

die. 
Our God is great. I deem Him great enough 
His truth to save without subverting ours. 
The Truth is sovereign. Think it not a sham 
That holds high rank because we courteous men, 
Coufiiderate men, allow it seeming rank ! — 
Who lies to save the truth distrusts the truth, 
Dishonors self, and disesteems his God. 
Who strives to save a soul thus, loses it, 
In evil trusting and the evil one, — 
Salvation through the devil, not through Christ ! " 

Then while he sat there, sat with flushing cheeks 
Himself defending thus, — I, charm'd the while, — 
The door flew open, and behind it stood 
My father and the priest. 

If they had said 
But one harsh word, it had not been so sad. 
But they were kind, too kind. Ah, sister dear, 
Have not you felt how much more pain it gives. 
This pain from kindness ? Love is like the sun : 
It brightens life, but yet may parch it too. 



112 IIAYDX. 

And wind may blow, and man may screen liim- 

self; 
And rain may fall, and lie may shelter find; 
And frost may chill, and he may clothing wear; 
But what can ward off sun-stroke? — Love, 
Its first degree may bring fertility ; 
Its second barrenness. It lights ; it blights. 
The flames of heaven, flash'd far and spent, turn 

smoke 
To glut the gloom of hell. 

And words so kind, 
(Harsh means we could have braced ourselves 

against) 
They wrought like spells to open each approach 
That caution should have guarded. " We knew 

not 
Our own minds, poor young pair," they said. 

" At least. 
Our love could wait : meantime, whose love could 

claim 
Our trust, like theirs whose treasure lay in us? " 

And then to me alone they spoke of Ilaydn : — 
'* He passionate had been : — how knew I now 
His passion might not turn against myself? 
And he had sinn'd, so sorely, sorely sinn'd : — 
How could one thus profane the Church and 

priest ? 
And did my love for him suggest such Avoids, 
Or should my love hereafter sanction them, 
Might not his sin prove mine ? — If I should yield, 
Be won by his unbridled tongue, might not 
My act confirm his trust in thought uncheck'd ? 
And thought uncheck'd, why, like a steed un- 
check'd, 



HAYDN. 113 

Once yielded rein — allow'd but once free way, 
One false association of ideas, 
Ideas would still associate with the false: 
There could no bridling after that be ; no." 

I said, " He loves much." 

They, " Did not I know 
How often love that lost all earthly friends, 
Came back from all things outward toward itself; 
And finding self, found heaven's design within ? 
Did not I know that loss and gain were both 
Designed to add to worth of inner traits 
That grow in souls as things in soil without ? — 
Each 2^assing season circling round a tree 
Leaves, clasping it, a ring : the ring remains. 
So seasons past remain about one's soul : 
And men can trace its former life far less 
By tales the tongue may tell, than by the range. 
The reach of light that circumscribes the mood, 
Including or excludinoj right or wrong." 

And then they added : " Might it not be found 
That loss of my love was the very means 
Design'd by Providence for Haydn's good ? " 

To this I could but say th^t " Love, his love, 
Itself seem'd Providence, a holy thing." 

They only frown'd, and said, " The prince of ill 
Came often robed like angels of the light ; — 
Why not like love ? — The only holy thing, 
Such proved to be, was Christ. And what of 

Him 
When moved by love ? How great His sacri- 
fice ! — 



114 HAYDN. 

And did I really prize this Haydn so, 
Would love prompt naught in nie ? " 

And thus they talk'd, 
Till, welcoming doubt, my faith succumbed to it. 
And all the love, once making life so proud, — 
The growth that I had deemed so sweet and fiir, 
It stung, a very thistle in my soul ; 
Each breath of theirs would blow its prickles sharp, 
And sow its pestering seedlets far and wide 
O'er every pleasing portion of my life. 

And I recall now calling out in prayer, 

How long, how toilfully, how fruitlessly ! 

At last, despair had made me leave my beads, 

And, moved as though to cool a feverish faith, 

Pass out, the night air seeking. There I saw 

The moon. It always soothed me with strange 

spells, 
The moon. But now, as though all things had 

join'd 
My peace to thwart, anon I saw this moon 
Caught up behind an angry horde of clouds, 
All chased by hot breath of a coming storm 
That clang'd his thunder-bugle through the west. 
When once the rude gust struck the moon, she 

tipt. 
Or seemed to tip, and with a deafening peal 
To spill one blinding flash. Then, where it lit, 
Just in the path before me gleamed a knife ! 
Held o'er a form of white ! The thing to see, 
I scream'd aloud. It seem'd a ghost ! 

INIy scream 
Awoke no echo save Doretta's voice : — 
" Janett ? — and were you frighten'd ? " 



HAYDX. 115 

Then to this, 
In part because the shock had stunn'd me much, 
In part because I felt me much provoked, 
But mainly since my mood was deaf to sport, 
I answer'd naught. Whereat, as now I think, 
Though then in that unnatural, nervous state, 
My mind surmised more horrid inference. 
She, stirr'd to still more mischievous caprice, 
Went on to vex me more. 

" AVhat ? — Fear you me ! 
And have you done so much against me, then ? 
And if you have, why fear you here a knife ? — 
You think the blade might draw some little 

blood ; — 
Would that much signify ? — the body pain'd ? 
Suppose that one should wield some subtler blade 
And draw some tears, mere watery tears, weak 

things ; — 
Would they much signify ? — a soul in pain ? 
And did you never now do that ? — draw tei#s ? — 
And think, is not the soul much worse to harm 
Than is the body ? — Fy ! why fear a knife ? 
If I supposed that through a life-time long 
My soul should bleed its dear strength out in 

tears. 
Say, would it not be mercy then to me 
For one to check the longer, stronger Avoe 
By shedding here some drops of weaker blood, 
Now, once for all ? " 

" dear Doretta mine," 
I cried, and still more frighten'd, " do you mean " — 

" This," answeii'd she, " I mean that I would cut 
My body's life in two parts sooner than 
My soul's life." 



IK) UAYDX. 

" Sister," I could only gasp, 
" Cease — do ; — put by that knife " — 

" Why ? " answered she ; — 
" For Avhat ? — Your wish ? Do you so often 

yield 
AVhen I wish aught ? — Say now what would you 
give ? " 

" Give ? — Anything ! " I answer'd. 

" Be not rash," 
She said. "It scarcely seems your way ; besides, 
The light is dim. — How know you? may not 

ears 
Be near us now to overhear? Beware ! — 
But pshaw I " she added, " I must go my way. 
And you go yours. — Who cares what either do? " 

" Doretta. nay ; but stop," I cried again, 

" Put by the knife ! — and if you will, then I — 

I will%ot care for Haydn " — 

'' You ? " she laugh'd ; 
" Who thought, then, who ? that you would care 

for him ? 
Aha ! if I had wished your thought to vent, 
Could I have chosen, eh? a shrewder thrust ? — 
Ha ! ha ! — to murder me, or you, or him ! 
It starts all madness just to tap your moods. 
But go in, simpleton. The rain may wet, — 
And trust the knife to me. It meant no harm 
Except to this beheaded cabbage here." 

And, shaking this aloft, she flitted off. 

While I walk'd vaguely back, to find my room 

Still sadder than before. I could not think 



HAYDN. 117 

That my surmise was just ; yet could not think 
That all her strange demean was meaningless ; 
To this day yet, I pause and puzzle oft 
That scene to ponder ; then, to moods confused, 
It seem'd the final blow, unsettling all. 

What comes as direful as the direful night 
Our spirits spend in trouble ? — fiU'd with fears 
That sleep may bring distressful nightmares now ; 
And now, that morn may come before we sleep ; 
Until, betwixt the two, distracted quite, 
Awake one dreams, and dreaming seems awake, 
And evermore does weep at what he dreams, 
And then does weep that he should dream no 

more. — 
In darkest fancies all that night I lay, 
A murderess, guilty of Doretta's death. 

Alas ! and after those so woeful hours, 

More woe awaited when the morning came. — 

Our Haydn's shattered frame so frail before, 

All rent by throes of passion yesterday, 

Once more lay prostrate in the arms of death: 

So thought we all ; I, ere the fact I heard, 

Its shadow cold felt creeping over me. 

The shutters closed, the silence everywhere, 

The very coffin of our lively home, 

The saddened looks, tlie voices all suppressed, 

The kind physician met without a smile, — 

I did not need to ask the cause of all. 

I sought and saw my Haydn. How his face 

Stared forth, a ghost's, against my sense of guilt 1 

For I, perhaps, had made his last thought sin : 

And I, perhaps, had help'd to doom his soul. 



118 IIAYDX. 

I tlioiiglit then of my fatlicr, of the priest, 
What tliey of love had said, of genuine love, 
Such love as Christ had had. 1 ask'd myself 
If there was aught that I could sacrifice ? 

Ah friend, do you recall that afternoon 

When first we met ? How sad yet sweet it 

seem'd ! 
So many kindly sisters with me spoke. 
And for me prayed; and then, at twilight dim, 
When hardly any eye but God's could see. 
We knelt before the altar : and I rose, 
Content if like that candle on the shrine 
Within my heart one Hght alone could burn ; 
Though all the earth beside might loom as dark 
As those chill, shadowy chapels down the aisle. 

I felt another life when walking home. 
Such conflicts come but seldom ; storms of spring, 
Uprooting much, and wracking much the soil. 
They find it frost-bound, and they leave it green. — 
Alas ! if grain or chatf grow then, depends 
U[)on the germs their rains have wrought upon. 
And yet, whatever come, it seems to me 
Earth's happiness is hope : and changes all 
To hope will cater, bubbles though they be. 
With pencils tinting all their hues, but rays 
That rift them into nothing. — Yet heaven's sun 
Thus tendering hints of beauty past our grasp, 
May with them tender actual blessings too ; 
Hope's transient gleams on earth reveal the light 
To be, when changing clouds of time are pass'd, 
The constant brightness of eternity. 



HAYDN. 1 1 9 

When Haydn better grew, could talk once more, 

And all our prayers for liini had answered been, 

The kind j)hysician urged that he and I 

Be kept not all apart. My father then, 

At first, demurred to this. I went to him. 

" My fiither," said I, " do not fear for me. 

If God will give our poor friend health once more 

Then have I vowed that never will I take 

A veil, save one that weds me to the church." 

"My daughter, — what? " he cried, " you never 

take — 
Ay, what is this you say ? — you wed the 

church ? — 
In God's name, girl, explain yourself.'' 

" A vow," 
I said, " I vowed before the virgin's shrine." 

" What strange, what thoughtless deed is this ? " 

he cried. 
" You take a vow, one not to be recalled. 
That you will thwart our hopes, our plans for 

you? — 
And shut away, away from all of us. 
This face, this form so cherished all these 

years ? — 
True ? — Is it true ? — I would not frighten you : 
Poor girl, God knows that you will have enough 
To shudder for. — Yet, it bewilders me : 
How did you, you who had been wont to be 
Confiding and considerate and calm, 
How could you do a thing so rash, so mad, 
So — must I say it ? — disobedient, 



120 IIAYDN. 

Nor once consult me ? — Tell me this, my girl : — 
What false inducement could have tempted you ? " 

" Woe me ! " I sobb'd, " I marvel'd when you 

said 
I could do so, the time I told you here 
That I would rather be a nun than be 
The baron's wife." 

" You dear, poor girl," he sigh'd, 
" Those w^ords Avere but a wdiiff, whiff light as 

breath 
You blow at flies that come to trouble you. 
And can it be that they V — I half believe 
(My words have cursed deeds evoked before) 
The very atoms of the air, like dust, 
Are spawn'd with vermin-eggs ! If one but speak, 
But break the silence ; if his breath but bear 
One faintest puff from passionate heat within, 
Lo, breaking open some accursed shell. 
It hatches forth foul broods of venomous life 
That come, blown backward by the changing 

wind, 
To haunt him who provok'd their devilish birth ! 
By day they sting our eyes, and make us weep ; 
Bv night steal through unguarded gates of sense 
And sting our souls in dreams ! — My heart ! 

and you ? — 
How could you deem those thoughtless words of 

mine 
The voice of such deforra'd design as this ? " 

" But father," said I, "he, the priest, your friend, — 
At least, it seem'd — so thought." 



HAYDN. 121 

" The priest ! " he cried, 
" Has he been meddling with your malady ? — 
My friend ? — My friend is he no more." 

"N.y, I," 
I said, " I sought his counsel ; even then 
He said but little." 

" Little ! " he rejoin'd ; 
*' That little, all too much ! Nay, never more — 
Yet hold " — And here he paused. — " The 

priest has power — 
Yes, now I think of it, it need not all 
Be darkness ; no. — The priest — one clew there 

is 
May clear this labyrinth. — The priest, he may, — 
He shall an absolution get ; yes, yes. 
An absolution, that shall make us right." 

And then my father, in his sanguine way, 

Recover'd somewhat. And he fondled me. 

" I see, my girl, you love this Haydn, yes. 

Why, here you stand a woman when I thought 

You only were my pet, my little child. — 

But do not cry : no, no ; I honor you. 

My little woman ! — There, forgive me now ; 

Forgive my words. And when it comes, my girl, 

The absolution, then, we then shall see. 

See whether father can be kind or not." 

With this he kiss'd me there. And what could 

I? — 
How could I tell him all his hopes were vain ? 
How could I think myself they all were vain ? 

From this time onward no one checked me more, 
Attending Haydn. All the household heard 



1*22 HAYDN. 

My sire " could trust his girl to be discreet ; " 

And something had Doretta even learned 

To make her caution more than half appeased. 

Then days and weeks and months pass'd quickly 

, by 
In which, when Haydn's prison'd love would start, 
E'en while I heard the trembling of its bars, 
I learn'd to check him, saying, gently, then, 
" But not now, Haydn ; nay, but we will wait." 

And thus a habit grew that our two lives 
Dwelt there like friends, made separate by war, 
Who out from hostile camps, wave now a hand, 
And now a kerchief, but who never speak. 
And yet I cannot say love never spoke. — 
We did not mean it ; but I think that love. 
May truth speak out, unconscious of the fact. 
Who conscious is of God's touch moving him ? — 
But littlest deeds they were ; yet spirits read 
From signs too fine for measurements of space ; 
Love heeds no measurements. But hints they 

were ; 
And yet what Avords of love yield more than 

these ? 
They hit the sense of love, but fail of sense 
Where nothing loving waits the hint to take. 

This learned our souls at last ; I wot not how. 
And kitten-like, at play beside the hearth, 
We told our secrets, and none knew of it. 

How swiftly sped the hours in happy nights 
When, after work, he rested there at home 1 



HAYDX. 123 

Such winning Avays he had to hire my trust I 

Such sweet pet names would call, to make me feel 

A thing so small, he well might be its lord ! 

Would tease me so, anon to comfort me ! 

Or rouse my temper that he mild might seem; 

Or tell such tales, that deep in dreams I laughed 

At wit reflecting, though distorting his ; 

Or better still, would play for me, — such strains! 

The very thought of them would seem like sleep, 

While half the night I lingered still awake, 

Half-conscions of the call of early birds 

And sparkling spray of light dash'd o'er the dews. 

At last, one night, when no one else was by, 

Some new impatience seized him ; and he spoke. 

" Janett, my friend, allow me only once ; — 
And say not, now, say not we still can wait : 
Have not I waited long ? Janett, my own, 
What forms the substance of this mystery 
Whose shadow rests between us ? Surely, friend, 
The slightest will on your part would have power 
To bid it off." 

" Not so," I answered him ; 
(I felt that now, at last, I must explain), — 
" Not if the shadow, separating, fell 
From something you and I could not remove." 

" That cannot be," he cried. " How can it be ? 
Of old your father thwarted much our love ; • 
But lately much has done to forward it." 

" And know you then," I ask'd, " what wrought 
his chanjxe ? " 



124 HAYDN. 

" His wiser judgment ; " answered he, " not so ? " 

" Are not there courses," asked I, " here, in life, 
Where conscientiousness and love may cross ? " 

" Still, " he exclaim'd, " the same old plea 

again ! — 
Your weakness is your wickedness. Why, friend. 
Does not our conscience spring from conscious- 
ness? 
And when now are we conscious ? When unwell : 
Hot, swollen blood frets limbs that feel inflamed : 
A sound man lives unconscious of its flow. 
And so a morbid train of foul ideas 
Will vex a mind diseased. But if in health. 
Its aims all true to God and self, — what call 
For conscience, spirits Ave ar but as the curb 
Whereby God checks the thought that love holds 

not ? — 
If right I be, then nothing needs to cross 
Pure love. It may have freedom. — 

" At the best. 
Our conscience forms but one small element 
Of character. Enough holds all in poise ; 
Too much but keeps in ferment moods that work 
Like brewings, sent to froth and sediment ; 
The froth foam'd toward the consciousness of 

others. 
The rest sunk down in self, embittering 
One's own experience." 

" And yet," I said, 
" Our conscience, in religion " — 

" There," he cried, 
" This too much conscience, overbalancing 



HAYDN. 125 

All wiser judgment, havoc worse has wrought ; 
Made men crave heaven and fear for hell, so 

much 
That,' in the gap betwixt the two, was left 
No charity willi which to do good here 
While on the earth." 

" I hope that mine," I said', 
" Would prompt some little good in present life. 
What would you say, some day, were I a nun ? " 

" ' Say ? ' " answered he, — and scorn was in the 

tone, — 
" 'Were you a nun? ' — Well, if those blooming 

looks 
Hide wormy fruit like that, I ne'er will trust 
Sound health again ! 

" Janett, I tell you this : 
The conscience of a nun is consciousness 
Of mere unrest, — no more. In natures framed 
Of body and of soul, the troubling cause 
May be some sin that clogs the spirit's springs ; 
But, just as likely, thought that puzzles one ; 
Yes, yes, or indigestion, nerves diseased — 
No trace of sin whatever ; — moods cured best 
By sunshine, clean clothes, larders full, good 

cheer." 

I told him how " irreverent, unjust " — 

" I might be both of these," he said, " in case 
I blamed the poor souls for the life they lead. 
But did I blame? — Not so; for in this world. 
Between youth's immature credulity, 
That can but trust in what some guardian thinks, 



126 IIAYDX. 

And manhood's faith mature that (liliiks for itself, 
A rcahii there is where will is trained to act 
Through doubt and danger ; Avhere the character, 
First wean'd from oversight, is taught to choose. 
Then, like a tottering child, it yearns to cling 
To one Avhose greater power can for it act. 
Its mood determines that to which it clings. 
Some girls are giddy : — they eml)race their beans. 
And some are gloomy : — they beset the priest. 
He like the beans may ply his own designs. 
May take advantage of this weaker state, 
And capture them for veils, if not for vice." 

" But marriage is a capture, too," I said. 

" If so," he said, " at least, a natural state. 
Made statelier through authority of law% 
That, otherwise, ndght authorize the wrong ; — 
A state to which, as not to convent life. 
All social instincts prompt ; may promi)t the more 
The more one's years. Who then can it fore- 
swear? — 
Think you a maid, with half her moods nnform'd 
At twenty, can conceive what thoughts may come 
To tnrn or torture her at thirty-five ? — 

*' But what, Janett, Janett, — you turning pale ! — 
In earnest, were you ? — Had you really 

thought ? — 
In God's name, darling, this could never be ! — 
Think only — Wherefore now ? " 

" Because," I said, 
" 1 hoped some good to do." 

" And do you deem," 



HAYDN. 127 

He ask'd, " The Virgin Mary did no good, 
When nursing her sweet babe ? Was she no 

saint ? 
And what of Christ, who ate and drank with all, 
Call'd ghitton and a bibber, yes, of wine ? — 
Was He no saint ? — And think what mortals 

need — 
To learn of life, that never can be theirs ? 
Nay, nay, to learn of life, inspired by love, 
That all can live, and all can better make. 
If you a saint would be then, do not seek 
For truth so sunder'd from the common thought, 
For love that knows no common sympathies." 

" Are some," I urged, " not called especially 
To care about the aged, sick, and poor ? " 

" Are some not call'd," he ask'd, " especially 
To care about the men they love the best ? — 
Or if the aged need them, need they most 
The young that old have grown before their 

time ? — 
Need sick men nurses pale ? — or poor men, those 
Whose souls have never stored experience rich 
Mined from a world the world's lords should ex- 
plore ? — 
Nay, nay, these classes all were better served 
By fresher, ruddier, wealthier helpers here. — 
Who gains aught where they have them not? — 

The nun ? — 
Ah, think you veils too hastily assumed 
May never change the hues and views of life, 
Perverting them ? — or curtain in young love, 
That might have grown with truth, to die with 
lies ? — 



128 HAYDN. 

Alone, when those who know what they would 

leave 
Turn calmly from the world to convent walls, 
AVould I restrain them not. Let such find homes, 
Large, sunny, healthful halls ; and dwell therein : 
From thence deal forth those gentle charities 
So potent dealt from out a woman's hand. 
Not strange it were if sickness, tended thus, 
Allured by their so loving smiles, should flush 
Or blush to perfect health ! if wickedness, 
Beneath incrusted woes of Avorldly years, 
Should feel the earlier faith of childhood waked 
By woman's voice, and thus be born again ! — 
Find life within the soul renewed, as well 
As in the body. Leave all good its place. 
I would not thrust the woman out from this. 
But rid it of its circumscribing vows." 

" Of all its vows ? " I asked. 

" Why not ? " he said. 
'• A vow but wrong augments, and with it woe. 
One time when young I stood before a tree, 
I vowed that, till an hour had passed away. 
My eyes should view it not. What came of it ? — 
The vow in misery kept me through the hour. 
And had it been a man and not a tree, 
The vow had more of misery caused, not so ? 
And yet God never made it wrong to view 
A tree or man : — the vow, it made the wrong. 
And once I can remember, aiding one, 
A foe, that thus I might fulfill a task 
A master forced upon me. Had I served 
Free choice or choice persuaded, then my will 
Had ruled what outward force made slavish toil. 



HAYDN. 129 

And had a oonvent this same task enjoined, 
My toil had been as slavish, — not my own, 
Its source or kind or object. Worth, if pure, 
Must be, I think, the child of liberty." 

" But Haydn," said I, " this strange convent, fill'd 
With age and vowless maids — you banish thence 
Christ's life, self-sacrifice." 

" Why sacrifice," 
He said, " unless to yield to higher good ? — 
Christ's life here glorified humanity. 
I must believe that souls not severed all 
From earth, but in the world, yet not of it, 
And in the body acting bodily, 
The lives transfiguring our common lives 
And common cares, the most resemble His. — 
Alas, the nun who seeks to glorify, 
In feigning burial to human cares. 
Humiliates rather her humanity. 
What else," when hinting truest womanhood 
Is maidenhood ? — By Eve and Mary, no ! 
The mother lives the model of her sex 
And not the maid. — Yet see — the wife's life 

slurred ^ 
The matron's rank made lower to lift her own ; — 
Self-sacrifice ? — Why not self-glory, pray ? " 

"But God she serves;" I said, "and others men." 

" How serves she God in doing this ? " he 

asked. 
" God made our nature. Who makes way with it. 
Makes way with manhood : this is suicide. 
God made the world where works His Providence 
9 



130 



HAYDN. 



To train our life. Who leaves the world, leaves 

God: 
And adds damnation to the suicide." 

" But if men leave the world," I said, " for this, — 
To enter thus the Church, how leave they God ? — 
They rather go to Him." 

" What is the Church ? " 
He asked. 

" The kingdom of the Lord," I said. 

" Yes, yes," he cried ; " and add the Master's 

words, — 
' The kingdom is within you.' — Ah, if so, 
I own some right to heed the voice within ; 
And none the right to bid my spirit bend, 
A passive slave to laws outside of me ? " 

" O Haydn," begg'd T, " say not this. Here 

speaks 
The same rebellion I was wont to feel. 
We must not judge for self, but reverence 
The words of men ordain'd to teach the world ; 
The words of men so learned in the truth ; 
The words of councils fdl'd with just such men. — 
No reverence have you for authority ? " 

"Most common courtesy would teach me that," 
He said. " And how could common piety, 
If awed before the Power above the sky, 
Deny a kindred awe to power on earth. 
The Church has power — and truth. I reverence 

both. 
The Church truth's storehouse is, and iiuardian. 



HAYDN. 131 

But ah, some truths have never yet been stored ! 

Infinity is broad, and broad enough 

For truth to grow within me and without, 

In self as well as in the Church and world. 

And I believe that all things God makes grow, 

Unfold in ways that work in harmony. 

And, when I love a soul as you I love. 

Did all the priests on earth assemble here, 

In front of them the pope, in front of him 

A shining form put forth by them as Christ, 

And tell me this pure love could lie to me, 

I would not " — 

" Haydn stop ! — dare not ! " I cried ; — • 
" And I have pray'd to God so much, so much, 
To make you more submissive." 

" I submit 
To God," he said ; " but with my love to God. 
How can I yield the godliest thing I own ? " 

And there he sat, so firm and yet so kind, 
I could not help, — I sighed, " You make me 
doubt." 

" Would God," he said, " I could do that for you. 
Then might you have true fiiitli. Where springs 

from will 
One wise effect that does not follow doubt ? 
One choice that does not weigh alternatives ? 
Doubt comes with wavering of the balances 
Before the heavier motive settles down. 
Let those who live so sure their views are right. 
Dissolve my doubt : — I dare to doubt of them 
If most they walk by knowledge or by faith. 
I read that Jesus answered him who })rayed, 



132 IIAYDN. 

' Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief; ' 
That on the crucifix his soul could cry 
' My God, O why hast thou forsaken me ? ' 
And so T deem our own doubts may not doom : 
Nay, rather rise like minor preludes here. 
Ere that triumphant cadence, ' It is finish'd.' 

" But come, Janett," he added then Avith warmth, 
" And promise me that you will yield them up, 
These sad, sad thoughts. Why, it would make 

of me 
A very infidel ! The Church destroy 
Our love ! What good then might it not destroy ? " 

A wonder is it, that to moods like this 
I could not say the thing I would ? 

Months sped. 
My time drew nigh. ]\Iy vows must be fulfill'd. 
I told my father of it, and he wept. 
Poor man, he spent his hours alternately. 
At times he urged ; at times he chided me ; 
At times he kiss'd my cheek and look'd at me ; 
At times he took me by the hand, and said, 
" My daughter, dear, we must defer the deed ; " 
At times he moan'd, " My daughter must do 
right." 

Quite slowly dawn'd on Haydn's mind the fact, 
Though not, as yet, the reason of my vow. 
And all the household grew so mild with me ; 
And all the neighbors gazed so piteously : 
If they had clothed my body in a shroud, 
And I had loiter'd round it there, a ghost. 
Life scarce had seemed more lonely or more chill. 



133 



But yet more sad than all it seem'd for me 

To shun poor Haydn. To his attic driven, 

Who knew his grief? — Alas, who knew it not ? 

Did ever harpsichord so crave a voice 

To utter forth a cry of full despair ? 

Did ever aught that human hands could touch 

So tremble to reveal such agony 

As shook the frame of him whose fingers sought, 

Along the sympathetic key-board there, 

The counterpoint still pointing out his woe ? 

Through all those days, how heeded I each sound, 
Ay, ay, or stillness in that room above ! 
Would hold my breath between the notes to feel 
His own suspense before the impending strain 
When fell, anon, his spirit's overflow. 
I never so had trembled at the peals 
Of thunder as beneath the chords he struck ; 
Nor felt my cheeks so moist by rains as there 
By tears that flow'd as flow'd his melodies ; 
While all the air about appear'd surcharged 
With dangerous force electric, touch'd alone 
To flash keen suffering down from him to me. 
And yet, each day, his music sweeter swell'd. 
Ere then, it may have lack'd in undertone. 
The pleading pathos of half-utter'd grief: 
When now that music moves me, ah, it seems 
As though heaven's self had been bereaved of love, 
And pour'd its sad complaint on earth beneath ; 
And I who listen to the sweetness sent 
Can never tell if I should smile or weep 
To think that it has come so far below. 
Or feel that it has left so much above. 



134 IIAYDX. 

One night I found my father still more sad 
Than wont Avith him. I knelt before him then, 
And '' O, my father, why is this ? " I ask'd. 
But nothing said he. Then I question'd him : 
I found the cause out. Haydn was the cause. 
My father loved him so, as men love sons ; 
And long had hoped he might a son become. 
But they had talk'd together, and had talk'd 
About Doretta. " Ah," my father sighed ; 
" My plans for all of vou are vain ! — 

" Why this ? " 
Continued he, — " why this, that now in age, 
Too old to aught renew, are lost to me 
My aims, my home, my hope, my happiness ? — 
And who has brought it on ? has done such wrong 
His deeds deserve it ? — Here am 1, myself, — 
I loved you, loved you both, but planned your 

good : 
The priest loved (so he says) the Church and 

you : 
Doretta loved, sought only love's full fruit : 
And Haydn loved, was but importunate : 
And you loved, girl, was but obedient : 
We all of us were loving, were we not ? 
Yet working outward, wisely, so we deem'd. 
We all have done the thing to doom us all. 
Alas Avhat power has wrought to thwart us so ? 
I do believe, though long I doubted it. 
There lives a devil ! Hell-scorch'd hands alone 
Could weave such death-black shrouds from 

threads so bright, 
Drawn out sleek skeins of love. That spider 

foul. 
Our sweet plans feeding on, emits this web, 



HAYDN. 135 

To trip and trap us in like flies ! — Ah me, 
It may be well that one should suffer here 
Until a wish bereaved shriek prayers for death ; 
But through what fearful pangs earth peels away 
This withering flesh from off the worthier soul. 
The scales about my own grow thin, how thin ! 
Janett and Haydn gone, and home, and hope, — 
What further shred invests the love so stript ! — 
Is this, then, being freed from earth ? — Yet 

look — 
Where signs of heaven ? — My God, I see them 

not." 

" O,' father, rave not thus," I cried. " O if — 
If Haydn, — if some power I had with him." — 

" Nay, daughter, nay," he said. Yet o'er his 

face 
Flush'd hope like hues at dawn. I kiss'd his 

brow : 
" Yes, father, I will try," and went my way. 

And Haydn then, when found, appeared so sad. 
" Ah," sigh'd he, " we two souls seem'd fitted so 
To match each other. Here, where jars the 

world, ^ 

And all goes contrary, i^iere every sun 
That ripes this, withers that ; and every storm 
That brings refreshment here, sends deluge there, 
We two, exceptions to the general rule. 
Like living miracles (is love fulfiU'd 
A miracle indeed ?) seem'd form'd to draw 
The self-same tale of weal or woe from each. 
I saw but last night, darling, in my dreams, 



136 



HAYDX. 



Our spirits journeying through this under gloom ; 

And hand in hand they walk'd ; and over them, 

As over lininer'd sernphs, did there hang 

A halo, love reflected. By its glow 

The gloom about grew bright ; while far away 

In clearest lines, the path pass'd up and on. — 

Janett, but heed me, once again, I pray, 

[If ever once I prayed to God above] 

Blot not this light from all my future life." 

" Ah Haydn," said I, " would you have me 

change ? 
What soul shall dwell on God's most holy hill 
But he ' that SAveareth to his own hurt,' yes, 
* And changeth not ? ' " 

" But yet, " he said, " but yet 
If you were wrong to swear ? How can it be 
That any purpose so unnatural 
Is right ? Each instinct of my soul revolts." 

" YeL nature," said I, " may be all corrupt. 
What is this instinct, that it should not lie ? 
If one should feel the instinct of the lamb 
While skipping to welcome the butcher's knife 
That waits to slaughter it, would he be wise 
To follow such ? " 

" And why not ? " answer'd he ; 
" The lamb was made that it might die for man: 
It follows instinct and dies easily. 
The soul was made that it might live for God : 
It follows instinct and lives happily. 
The cases differ thus. May not there be 
Some depth, bejond the reach of mortal sight, 
Within whose subtle grooves our spirits glide 



HAYDN. 



13^ 



Unconscious of the balancings of will ? 

God's Spirit lives too holy to be seen. 

May not it stir, beneath all conscious powers, 

A spontaneity that moves the soul 

As instinct moves the body ? — Ah, to me, 

Love seems an instinct that impels them both." 

" How so ? " I ask'd, in hope to guide his thought 
Toward sacrifice. 

" You wish me then," he said, 
" To turn philosopher for you ? — I will. 
This love, in morals sprung from faith in man, 
And in religion from our faith in God, 
Seems, in its essence, an experience 
Not wholly feeling yet not wholly thought, — 
Not all of body yet not all of soul, 
Of what we are or what we are to be, — 
But more akin to marriage, within self, 
Of our two separate natures, sense and soul. 
God meant them to be join'd : when wedded thus. 
One rests content, the other waits in hope." 

" To rest, to wait," I said to this ; " and if 
Such ends displaced were, would there not remain 
The work that forms our earthly heritage ? " 

" And may not God," rt^oin'd he, " grant us 

more 
Than that which we inherit ? " 

I replied, — 
"He rest may grant. Yet rest, the Paradise 
Of work, is still the Purgatory, too, 
Of indolence." 

" The soul's true Paradise 



138 HAYDX. 

Is nothing earn'd," he said. " It is a gift. 
With Eden lost, insolvent for his sin, 
Work, so I view it, is a loan from Hope 
With which man pays the debt of Memory. 
But if I reckon right, a pauper still. 
He scarce can earn enough to pay them both. 
So true love, as I view it, is a gift. 
Our action crowning, yet not won by it ; 
Which, as we live not conscious how 't is earn'd, 
We live not conscious how it may be lost. 
Things out of consciousness are out of care. 
We rest not as in death that furthers naught : 
We rest as in a dream, in sleep, — a state 
Wherein God watches while the soul regales. 
We rest not from the healthful stir of work, 
But from the slavery proportioning 
Our pleasure to our pain, — a law for serfs. 
But not for sons. Such rest is peaceful, hush'd, 
The very church of choice, as different 
From other joy as prayer may be from sport." 

" And choice, does it not oft feel moved," I ask'd, 
" To spurn a lesser for a greater good ? 
For greater good, too, may not Love on high 
Displace some idol of our ignorance ? " — 

W^ith this, I ])ictured for him brightest life ; 
And, like a blot on every scene, myself; 
Maintained my character was not the one 
Form'd most to succor his ; show'd how my sire, 
The priest, Doretta, all agreed in this. 
And then, in contrast with myself, I sketch'd 
A nature all deem'd fitted for his moods. 
I may have sinn'd in it ; but, grim as fate, 



HAYDN. 



139 



My father's features seem'd to urge me on : 
I noted all Doretta's nobler traits ; 
And when I thought he now must all surmise, 
And Avhile he held his gaze a2:ainst the floor, 
As though he gave assent, at last I spoke 
Doretta's name. 

And if the solid earth 
Had quaked, he had not started more. O God, 
Why could I not accept his instinct then ! 

He look'd at me, first pale, then flush'd, then 

firm ; 
And then with tremulous, painful breath, he 

said, — 
" And this device from you ? from you, so pure ? 
So free from guile V You should have spared 

me this. 
That Jesuit has train'd you well ! Ah, now, 
I know how Adam felt that Eve could fall ; 
How Eve herself, when round her soul first crept 
The serpent's cautious coils of smooth deceit, 
To smother inch by inch. I read it now, 
That tale : it stands an allegory, ay ; — 
That serpent means the world. The world steals 

round, 
Encircling childhood, trammeling it from heaven. 
Not long are souls allow'd ideal life. 
Not long unfetter'd sense or hearts unbound : 
Our smiles grow stiffer, till, some fatal day, 
The last one clutch'd, is held, a hideous grin. 
Then, when the body stirs not with the soul, 
The last nerve wrested from the Spirit's rule. 
Naught in us left to love, the world unwinds ; 



140 HAYDN. 

Our capturer, it dissolves in mist or dust : — 
For its embraces Ave have lost our God ! " 

His mood alarm'd me, yet could I protest, — 
" Nay, Haydn, nay ; I do not love the world : — 
I long to leave it, yes, all thought of it." 

" How much less worldliness is found," he asked, 
" AVithin the Church than in the world so 

called ? — 
The prince of this world is not nice in choice 
Of equipages ; where he cannot check 
He mounts the car of truth and grasps the rein ; 
And when the devil drives, he drives for home. 
' The world,' what means this, but the world 

alone, — 
The mass, devoid of mind, truth, s[)irit, love ? — 
And what, pray, has the Church ? — A mass ? — 

ay, ay. 
Devoid of mind? — Why not? — But show the 

place 
It crowds not reason out to edge in faith. — 
But ' faith,' say you, ' is reasonable ' ? — Ay, 
When there is reason in it ; when the thing 
In which it trusts is truth. But how the Church ? — 
Ah, prick the fi.rms, and there, behind, you 

find — 
What ? — truth ? — nay, nay, a priest — a man, 

forsooth, 
Who differs from the rest of us in clothes ; 
Who wears the ftither's habits that the need 
And progress of the times have cast aside. — 
' Why cast aside ' ? — Because all moods whose 

rano;e 



IIAYDX. 1 41 

Is girt by customs past, that could alone 
Prejudge thought's present range, fit prejudice, — 
And this is that behind your Church's forms. — 

" ' Nay, nay ; ' you say ? — ' The Spirit formed the 

forms 
To fit the life ? ' — Ay, fit the life that was ; 
And life if life will grow ; and that of love 
Has not yet filled the scope above, about. 
Of heavens that for it wait. What formed the 

forms 
Can still be forming them. — Nay, more: find one 
Wlierein no Spirit works, no present life, — 
The thing is hollow ; and a hollow form 
Is just the devil's own! He leaps inside, 
But half disguised within those robes of white, 
Loud chanting out that ceremonious cant 
To temj)t toward his hypocrisy an age 
That knows too much of Christian thought, at last, 
For heathen thought to tempt it. 

" Judge by fruits : — 
Here you — God gave you beauty — to be seen I 
And grace to bless this dear, dear home. What 

power 
Would snatch you from us ? make a very hell 
Of what might else be heaven ? — Love, think 

you, love ? — 
Not so : a power that hates love ; plays the part — 
Nay, not of Christ who yielded up his life. 
But — of the Avorld that made him yield it up, — 
A power that trusts in force, and force that lies. 
And now that it can hold you with a vow 
That but deceit could claim God drew from you, 
It seizes you to plunge you down, down, down, 



142 IIAYDN. 

To feel the full dainiuition of belief 

Conceiving this, the voice within the soul, 

A lying guide ; nor love to be lived out 

Without foul consciousness of sin within ; 

To plunge you down, and hold till all the cells 

Of that pure, guileless heart, are stained and 

steeped. 
And drip but dregs of stagnant viciousness ! " 

" You terrify me, Haydn ! " I exclaim'd. 

" And yon far more have done to me ! " he cried. 
" You were — Ah me, what were you not ? — 

so pure, 
Transparent as the mid-day atmosphere. 
Should some red thunderbolt from sunlight burst 
And burn all torturing blindness through my eyes. 
Night came less unforetokened ! I, who dream'd 
That here I worshipped truth, here bent these 

knees 
To kneel on very battlements of heaven, 
I, tript thus from my dear proud confidence, 
Sent reeling down to sate this foul deceit, — 
A wonder is it if scared sense be jarr'd 
To slip all order, — if I rave, if curse ! — 
You, who my heart had known ; and, after that, 
And after I had warn'd against the thing, 
And simulating all the while such love, — 
You, vowing to abjure me ! more than this, 
To-day with such cold-blooded, souless tact, 
You, stealing here through doorways left ajar, 
And entering inmost chambers of my heart, 
To snare, — as though the victim of a cat 
That could be played with, tricked with, kill'd, 

cast off, — 



HAYDN. 



143 



This love of mine that — all you might have 

known 
Stirred not, but just to serve you ! — Well, once 

more, 
You gain your end ! Once more, your wish is 

mine. 
How can I love ? — God help me ! — Go you 

free." 

HoAv fiercely then did Haydn's music storm ! 
And soon he would have left our home in haste : 
My father spoke to stay him. Long they si)oke ; 
And sometimes stormy were the words they used. 
But then, at last, my father told him all, — 
Why I had vow'd, that I his life might save, 
And he broke down before it. 

Never more 
May God permit me to behold again 
A broken man ! Alas, how pleaded he ! 
He begg'd, he pray'd forgiveness o'er and o'er, 
Till I Avell-nigh believ'd he heard me not ; 
And in the end sigh'd out " It might be so. 
My plan be wisest ; — nay, he would not yield 
His stronger judgment, to fulfill my wish, 
To make me happy, or my sire or me : — 
Doretta surely was a housewife wise : 
It seemed the older custom, thus to wed : 
He young had been, had whims. — God bless us 
all." 

Oft, after that, I urged him not to wed 
Unless his heart could love. The answer came, 
" This heart of mine, a heart that once loved you, 
How could it love again with love like this ? — 
Yet what, if not ? My soul was immature. 



144 HAYDN. 

Romance weaned late. It must be manly now. 
A man has breadth. I take it manly love 
Is love that yields most blessing to the most. 
And mine shall bless yourself, your father, her." — 
And so he calmed my doubt and cheered me 
much. 

And oft I spoke with him about the Church. 
" Can I forget its holding you ? " he asked. 

" Ah Haydn," said T, " I remember once 

When young you were, when music scarce had 

lured 
Your soul, so thrill'd ! to test its energies : 
Then Gluck your master was ; you follow'd him 
So far beyond your own, as then you deem'd, 
Flowed forth the full perfection of his strains. 
And now you Gluck have passed. Yet, even 

now, 
Still far beyond you sound those strains com- 
plete. 
Ah, friend, Gluck only happened in the path, 
That opened then before you. But those 

strains ? — 
Those can you reach not, Haydn, till you reach 
The choirs of heaven ! 

*' And thus, at times, I think 
That I may too have happened in your path ; 
And this, your love, now looking toward myself, 
May gaze, when I am gone, for holier things, 
Ideafall." 

" When you — alas," he sigh'd, 
" When you are gone, then life shall all become — 
I fear it much — one lonely wail for you." 



HAYDN. 145 

" And yet a lonely Avail, breathed forth," I said, 
'' From one with spirit sweetened, sweet may seem 
To earth that hears it." 

" Ah, I take the thought. 
You mean my music," answer'd he. " O God, 
Must love be sacrificed that art be saved ? — 
Redeem'd at that price, it were all too dear ! " 

One thing he promis'd me. I urged it much. 

" In secret convent-prayers," I said to him, 

" My soul must know if it should praise or plead. 

A year from now, we two must meet once more. 

We cannot talk together, must commune 

While gazing, silent, through the cloister-bars. 

And then, if wedded Hfe afford you joy — 

I doubt it not — bring with you flowers pluckt 

fresh : 
If not, then bring alone the wilted leaves 
Of these I give you now." 

Then soon had pass'd 
The last vague hours that saw me part from all. 
I stood before the shrine. I feel it yet : — 
The organ moaning sweetly far away ; 
The people whispering low amid the aisles; 
My heart so loud, nor hush'd in sermon-time ; 
The multitude with eyes so fix'd on me ; 
My fiither sad ; Doretta near his side ; 
And Haydn's face upon his pale, pale hands. 

And two months after that I saw them wed. 
And, sister, I havesjoray'd for him long days. 
And longer nights ; and I have had rare hopes 
My soul so faint, new strength from God had 
gained. 

lb 



11'"' IIAVI>.\. 

But now my Ijody poor, so white, so thin, 
With SL'urcc substantiality of jjuise 
A ghost to be ; — ah, what if, like a ghost, 
It soon should vanish ? 

So I thought, to-night, 
If I eould tell you here, eoufess the lault ; 
My heart unload of all its sweet, sad love. 
That God might give me rest. I did not, nay, 
I did not mean it, to exeite myself. 
They told me that it death might bring ; but O, 
Have not I borne enough to merit life ? 
How had I eounted time, these weeks and days. 
To reach the hour we two should meet again. 
And I should fnid how all my prayers were heard, 
And heaven had made my Haydn blest. — 

He came. 
Last week : and, sister, what, what can it mean V — 
He brouglit the wilted leaves — 

I do not know. 
I only know that I can earn no rest : 
All, all our household so much else have earned ! 
And now, how can — I nothing more can try ; 
But all my path block'd up has been, block'd up. 
They say such words are infidelity, — 
O Christ ! — and yet I can no more. 

Hark ! hark ! — 
Is that not Haydn's hymn we hear again V — 
IIow faint it sounds! — or I, I faint may be. 
The window — move me. There — look out — 

those clouds — 
The sunset? — Ah, what come on earth so 

bright 
So beautiful as clouds ? — and yet no clouds 
Where one eould see, and alwavs see,*tlie heaven. 



HAYDX. 147 

The music, hear it — hear how sweet ! — Say, 

say, 
Did I sing then? — Not so? — and onl}- dreamed? — 
I thought that music mine, and then myself; 
And Haydn's heart, it beat here, beat in me, — 
Ah me, so tired. — Yes : let me rest on you. 

God, for but one hour to live ! — For what? 
Have I not loved then ? — Sister, tell him so. 
Tell Haydn; thank him. — God, praise Him for 

it. 

1 did not know — yet life, it sweet has been. — 
Hark ! music ! — Does it not come from above ? 



By the Author of Ideals made Real. 

COLONY BALLADS. 

" Each of the poems contains the essential elements of a lyric : 
briskness, brightness, passion, and sustained interest. These 
poems are seven in number. ' Our First Break with the Brit- 
ish ; • ' The Last Cruise of the Gaspee,' a stirring tale ; ' The 
Lebanon Boys in Boston ; ' ' The Crown-s Figlit against the 
Town's Right,' a companion in some degree to ' Paul Revere's 
Hide ; ' ' The Rally of the Farmers ; ' ' Ethan Allen,' and ' How 
Barton took the General.' The Yei-sification is remarkably good, 
easy, flowing, natural, and spirited, and while there is little 
attempt at sentiment, the pictures are strong in outline and 
vigorous." — Boston Traveller. 

"Mr. Raymond is to be congratulated upon having caught 
and embodied with musical force, the true ballad spirit. In 
writing a ballad the secrets of success are definiteness of aim, 
directness of execution, and singleness of idea. The language 
must be simple but so vigorous that every word tells ; the metre 
must also be simple, but the versification demands a musical 
swing, a rush of rhyme, the talent for wliich is rare. To smell 
of the lamp is fatal to the ballad ; it should have all the spon- 
taneity of an impromptu. The author must forget himself, for 
ballad poetry is essentially objective, and a touch of subjectiv- 
ity spoils it. Each incident must be related as though the 
writer had taken part in it, and sciiiti:: with his mind's eye, he 
must paint as vividly as thou-li that ilcscribed were before him 
in very truth. It is not an easy tliini;- to write a ballad in these 
days, when the drift of poetic thought is quite in the opposite 
direction, and Mr. Riymond deserves all the more credit for 
what he has done. His ' Colony Ballads ' are full of life and 
fire, and their rhyme singularly flowing and effective. They 
deserve popularity." — Philadelphia hujuirer. 

" Seven spii-ited songs of the Revolution of 1776, written in 
pure, stout English, with a good dash of Saxon in it, and much 
brave common sense. Professor Ilaynifnnl has been for many 
years recognized as a sweet singer by his college classmates and 
other persons who know him well. His works show that he has 
been a faithful stvident of ancient and contemporaneous philos- 
ophy ; that he has keenness of insight and the power of expres- 
sion; that his tastes have been nourished by reading and by 
travel ; that he sympathizes with nature, and can converse with 
her; and, above all, that he understands the subtle distinction 
between poetry and prose." — Ne^o York Evening Post. 

"A valuable contribution to the Centeimial year The 

author has made a decided hit." — Providence Press. 

" A modest, but eminently successful attempt Songs, 

.... all of which deserve a place in the library of an Ameri- 
can citizen." — New Haven Register. 

" Besides the thread of history upon which they are strung, 
the color of popular sentiment, and the rich shades, so to call 
them, of the patriotic impulse of the times, are indelibly fixed 



in these ballads. Mr. Raymond haa done th€ country a service." 
— Lvthrrnn Ohsirver. 

" Tlic ballad, as a form of folk-history, is probably pai«t ita 
period. Poets continue to miko the article, but the people no 
lonjrer sing them by the fireside, in the olden fashion. They 
mi)^ht do so, for they have some very sin^.tbh^ ones, like the 
present collection from the pen of Professor Georjjfc L. Ray- 
mond. A still stronfjer reason for popular acceptjince is the 
patriotic purpose of these b.illads." — IIdhu- Jnuriial. 

" The ballads are well written, evinciuf^ poetic talent of a high 
order. Their patriotic sentiments and musical rhythm will com- 
mend them to a wide number of readers. — Albany Press. 

" There is a patriotic flavor about these ballads that many 
lovers of poetic fire will richly relish." — Pittsburg Commercial. 

" Spirited reproductions of well-known historical events, and 
are welcome additions to the poetical literature of this year. 
.... Looked at from an artistic point of view, .... -jliywing 
that the author has made a conscientious studv of the art of 
poetical composition, and that he is not deficient in natural 
in.spiration." — Boston Courier. 

" The book is quite an interesting one in many respects."' — 
New Haien Journal and Courier. 

" Mr. Jlaymond .... has chosen his subjects judiciously, 
and has given to them a prosaically i)icturesque treatment. 
His muse comes to us dressed in homespun instead of that airy 
attire which we are wont to .ascribe to the goddc'ss. We admire 
Mr. Riymond"s patriotism and that gracious public spiritedness 
which led him to put in jtoetic form the traditions that came to 
his hand. If he will not r.iiik high jus a poet, he will at least 
win the esteem of all who like to see the stories of our country's 
struggles honored." — AVi« York Et-enins: l^ele^ram. 

" Full of d;vsh and fire, and the stories well told." — Boston 
Post. 

" Full of robust vigor, and will help to perpetuate the mem- 
ory of patriotic words and deeds."' — Xationat Baptist. 

" >'^even of the most romantic and thrilling episodes of the 
Revolution. The author is a master of rhythm and rhyme."" — 
Trofi Wlii^. 

" They are very well written, and reproduce .... the spirit 
of the time to which they relate."" — Worrtster Spy. 

"The ballads are, many of them, beautifully written." — 
Cincinnati .Journal anil M-'ssens^er. 

"The ballads are of even quality. . . . The author on the 
whole .seems to have succecled very well in the execution of 
his purpose, and the themes he has chosen are such as to pre- 
sent some of the most salient fe^itures of the great struggle for 
freedom."' — Boston Journal. 

Sejit by the Publishers, Hl'RD & IIouGHTON, postage prepaid, 
on receipt of the price, 75 cts. 



HAYDN AND OTHER POEMS. 

" These poems are preceded b}' an es.say on the Ars Poetica. 
It is steady with thought. Its perusal has intensely inter- 
e.sted us."' — Cincinnati Journal and Messeni^er. 



" The contents of this volume are evidently the work of a 
poet of no mean order. The author has chosen to remain 
anonymous, but there is no need for any shrinking from criti- 
cism. The long poem which occupies the chief portion of the 
Dook is full of thought, and will well repay the second and 
third perusals. There is, too. a smoothness of versification 
about the whole that renders everything here pleasant reading 
while at the same time it tells of careful and continued effort 
on the part of the writer." — London (Eng.) City Press. 

" The versification is pleasant and the thought high and poet- 
ical, some of the minor poems being especially charming. 
Boston Post. , . „ 

" Introduced by a remarkably acute and clever analysis of 
the requirements of poetic art, and a few general reflections on 
the general rationale of poetic analogy. From one whose prose 
runs so admirably clear and strong we should expect nobility 
of thought and correctness of verse; in his attached poems, 
both are found. ' Haydn ' is a poem of remarkable vigor, in- 
stinct with genuine poetic ideality and imagery, all nobleness 
and beauty. The verse is smooth and graceful, and the fancies 
real articulations of the brightest thought. Some touches or 
arguments, and occasionally pictures, remind the reader of that 
wonderfulStiantasmagoria, " Festus,^' ' yet gentler, less sub- 
tle, humaner, more in the spirit of mankind. - Rochester 

'''^ nlvdn,' which occupies about two thirds of the volume, 
is fine, thoughtful, elevated, pathetic. We ^^^f^^^'^'f^l'^^n 
recommend it as well worth reading. '- -Bo5<ort Common- 

'^'''?he artistic reproduction of this sorrowful ^o^f n^^' tj« 
sweet, tender purity that hallows the sentiment of the Joung 
lovers, the subtle beauty of the words that apt^ly mat^^ he 
sense,'all attest the instinct of the true poet and tjie ski I of the 
natural versifier. Among the minor poems, ' Caged ' grace- 
fullv incloses a captivating fancy." — Chicago fost. 

" tS il no reason why the author of this little Poem should 
hide his personality. It has merits which older and more 
famous poets do not always possess. It is a^. •^^™<rf «* ^*l" 
better things to come, for its author is a man who will groA^ in 
his art as he matures in thought and expression. . • • • ^t ^s 
apparent on every page that the author considers poetry not a 
nastime but the highest and purest form of mental activity. 
AY?thais ideal before him, it is evident that he has written m 
he hope thafhe may be counted a poet, and not a mere verse 
maker, who gratifies a whim by exercising his "^g^nuity with 
dactvls and trochees .... There is a good deal of Emersonibm 
aShfs phSopby. With all this it will strike t^iereade,^as 
the sentiment of a mind cultivated and If ^^'^^^th true and no ^ 
ble views of life and its duties. In ^t* development Haydn 
o-ivps mnnv nroofs of the artistic conceptions of the autlior .... 
Ihe'sSr'poems'that make "P t^^^ -^^toTs'of art' Zn^ 
are many of them superior to ' Haydn ' as ^^^^^ «* ^it. None 
of them are wanting in the true elements of poetry — not tne 
Soetrfof the Srt, perhaps, which many tl^'-^,^? ,«"YvS 
uine poetry -but the poetry of the head most certainly, which 



is the pootry where true and high art is found in its iicrfcc- 
tion." — Utira Mornim; Ilernld. 

*' Kcndcrocl in rich blank verse, and will add to the many 
favomblc opinions already expressed of the anonymous au- 
thor." — Cinrinnnti Ckronicle. 

" A vcjIuiuo of rt^al i>oetry, the offspring of a cultured genius. 
.... It is dillicult to s.iy precisely in wiiat his charm consists. 
On almost every p:ige we arc brought face to face with the 
tniccs of a severe realism, a sprightly and agile humar, a fancy 
graceful in every careering, a heart warm with love an 1 sym- 
pithy fortne brotheraooj We follow him, and the laby- 
rinthine windings and inner recesses through whii-h ho lea is 
us arc those of our own hearts. There is no ostentation in his 
philanthropy, and neither latitudinarianism nor bigorry in his 
religion. His dcscripiioni are as varied a.s an October land- 
scap'.', and sometimes as beautiful. Graceful allusions, historic 
incidents, minute analyses, delicate touches, vivid picturings, 
metaphors bold and occasionally almost startling in their nov- 
elty and brilliancy, are scattered in profusion, but we look in 
vain for the slightest token of a disposition wantonly to play 
with language, or to shock the reader into attention by the use 
of mongrel compounds or strange concateniitions. He is a 
thorough master of English verse, because, as the introduction 
to his volume shows, he has been a laborious and conscientious 
student. This introduction it.-<elf is a model of vigorous and 

manly prose The principal poem, from which the 

volume takes its name, is the story of the love of a beautiful 
girl, who afterwards enters a convent, for the musician Haviln. 
The story is a confession — for the narrator is the fair writer 
herself, who, under the roof of a monaster}-, is about to receive 
from Death the bridal kiss which Haydn never wa.s ^>ermitted 
to give. A priest, through whose influence principally the girl 
becomes a nun, figures very conspicuously, and is one of the 
participants in an interesting debate in which the author, with 
great skill and power, shows the superiority of Protestantism, 
while ho gracefully concedes all that is true in Catholicism, 
and fairly states the argument it has to offer in vindication of 
itseii. .... The ' other Poems ' are twenty in number, and 
will compare favorably with most in contemporaneous litera- 
ture. The last one, entitled ' Whatever the Mission of Life 
may be,' is strong in masculine thought, tersely expressed, and 
is a better pi-esentation of tho same subject than Tennyson's 
famous sonnet 'To J. M. K.' '■ — American Presbyterian Re- 
view. 

" The author writes vigorously, and manifests a thorough ac- 
quaintance with poetical composition. His works abound with 
many beautiful thoughts and conceptions, which are peculiarly 
rem irkable for the elegant and picturesque language in which 
they are clothed. It is rarely that we meet with a writer who 
couiV)ines in so natural an 1 at the same time so artistic a man- 
ner the graces of the jjoet with the subtleties of the philosopher. 
The morality of his writiui^s is arf unquestionable as their ex 
cellcnce and' literary worth will make them worth remember- 
ing." — Jeivisk Mrxseir^er. 

'' The author of this volumo has .... proved himself tho 



possessor of the genuine gift of song. He is thoughtful, care- 
ful, never allowing his poetic fervor to cheat his judgment of 
its rights, nor svispend the exercise of his critical and subtle in- 
tellect, and yet his verse has both vigor and sweetness, and not 
a little of his fine imagery will long cling to the reader's mind 
and yield a true a3sthetic enjoyment.'* — Dover Morning Star. 

" For a non-poetic age there is a surprising quantity of good 
poetry, not only written, but published and read ; and the 
truth seems to be, not that poets are scarce, but that they are 
too plentiful to excite the admiration which was paid them 
when the supply was less. The volume before us contains 
much better poetry than sufficed in years gone by to make a 
man the fashion while he lived, if it did not give him a pass 
port to posterity ; and strange to say it is yet produced on a 
theory which is rather elaborately set out and justified in i 
' dedication and introduction.' The common run of readerf 
will ' skip ' all this without lessening their enjoyment of wha' 
follows. The principal poem, ' Ilaydn,' .... deals with thr 

loves and the lovers of the great composer There is noS 

only the rivalry in love of two sisters as a base of interest to 
the poem, but there is the influence, evil as it is represented, 

of a priest in addition Very seldom can we meet with 

dialogue in blank verse so well expressed as in this work. The 
characters are distinctly and sharply drawn, and in their say- 
ings are numerous gems of thought The minor poems 

are quite equal in their way to the more ambitious one 

This {' Caged ') alone would be sufficient to prove the author's 
right to the name of poet, and to justify him in publishing the 
little volume under notice." — Peterborough (Eng.) Advertiser 
and South Midland Times. 

" Among our young poets now making their first appearance 

before the public, by far the most promising lie is not 

the freest from faults ; . . . . but even his faults evince a self- 
discipline and earnest labor and appreciation of his art, which 
united to his indubitable native genius, give us great expecta- 
tions of his future The principal poem is a monologue 

inclosing a dramatic tale of great beauty and tenderness 

A pure, elevated Christian enthusiasm, imbues every produc- 
tion that w^e have seen of this young poet ;- not the mere senti- 
ment of Christianity, but also its force and dignity. We feel 
assured that if his career continues as it has begun, the name 
which is now unknown will yet be garlanded with renown." — 
Princetonian. 

" In the treatment of his subject the author of ' Haydn ' has 
made the best use of his materials. The different characters 
sustain their respective parts well, and the emotions of the 

human heart are brought out in a very natural manner 

The versification is excellent, and proves that the poet is no 
novice in his art. Nor is sense anywhere sacrificed to sound. 
A depth of thought pervades the whole, and a sympathetic feel- 
ing with humanity. We highly commend the book to our read- 
ers in the conviction that its perusal will be both agreeable and 
instructive." — Guernsey ( Chaimel Islands) Mail and Tele- 
graph. 

" Poems published lately which attracted notice as quite be- 



yond the ordinary Terse of the day in picturesque speech, har- 
monious and well balanced versification, and the limning of 
subtle experiences of life. ' Ilaydn • .... is narrative and 
dramatic with passages of great beauty and power."" — Boston 
Congregatiotialist and Recorder. 

" They possess the highest merits which scholarship, thought- 
fulness, and refined taste can give.'" — Cincinnati Gazette. 

" The vigor of expression and the high purpose of these poems? 
make them an agreeable study. The author certainly has great 
ability." — N. T. Observer. 

" The volume closes wath didactic poems, some of which are 
as fine as any in the language." — Rutland Herald. 

" The author is a man of promise, of deep thought and deep 
feeling, possibly a little too tragic in tendency. He writes with 
vigor, and as one in earnest to impress otheirs." — The Advance. 

" While as a whole its poetry is above the average in merit, 
it would be easy to cull from it many passages of beauty and 
power." — Christian Intelligencer. 

HUED AND HOUGHTON, Publishers. 

13 ASTOR PLACE, New York. 



016 165 705 



